We agree that the disengagement will make us stronger*
Dana Perino | AP
Dana Perino, President George W. Bush’s press secretary, gave her final press briefing today, and we’re a little sad about that. Perino’s press briefings were extraordinarily watchable.
She could be stern and uncompromising or funny and ironic. She seemed to have little tolerance for ignorance or laziness. She never let someone put words in the president’s mouth, or hers. And though we quibbled with some of her statements and what she thought were facts, we’ll miss her.
She was hilarious in a star turn in December 2007 on NPR’s game show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me.” (Listen here.) It was in that show that she famously admitted she didn’t know much about the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For her last briefing, she prepared a slide show to poke fun at the White House press corps. Watch it at CBS.
At a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor before her final briefing, Perino said that Republican woman are misunderstood, and pointed out that Ann Coulter is not representative of Republican women, whom Perino called graceful, diginified, like Laura Bush.
Perino also decried the rise of commentary journalism and the fall of traditional reporting.
Although we’ll miss watching her press briefings, we doubt this is the last we’ll see of Dana Perino.
(From a Perino quote: “We agree that the disengagement will make Israel stronger.”)
Jamie Riley is the P-D letters editor and gatekeeper of the letters blog. Before joining the editorial page in May 2005, she was a reporter and page designer. Jamie lives in University City with her husband, Charles, daughter, Elise, and the world's best Jack Russell terrier, Logan, better known as Stinky. 
Once I heard that Cuban Missle crisis line, that was it. She should have been fired on the spot and required to repeat the seventh grade. She wasn’t worthy to shine Tony Snow’s shoes. She will end up on a bimbo channel on cable with Dee Dee Meyers, et al. where her tag line will be, “well, we will just have to wait and see.” Dana and Scott… Bush sure knew how to pick them.
Bush should have hired Ann Coulter as his press secretary. T’would have been a much more entertaining eight years.
jjk - the Cuban Missile Crisis? Gee, that’s a little harsh pal. So- called professional journalists don’t know proper grammar. So who is perfect?
At least Dana pays her taxes and doesn’t have pending ethics charges against her like Obama potential cabinet picks.
Hold on. She apparently didn’t like ignorance or laziness, yet she herself knew little about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Definitely no hypocrisy there. jjk… Ignore the barb. I’m sure you at least don’t spell the word `know’ as ‘no.’ A Centrist can’t claim the same.
“she famously admitted she didn’t know much about the Cuban Missile Crisis”
I doubt that puts her in the minority in this country, especially with the sad state of public education.
Just another random thought..
Why would the current press secretary care about an event that occured 45 years ago? I don’t think being a history professor is part of the job description for presidential press secretary.
We just nearly annihilated ourselves as a species. No biggie.
As I recall her response to being asked to compare a current crisis to the Cuban Missle Crisis, was, “wasn’t that in Cuba, or something?” I don’t think it is too much to expect the spokesman for the President of the United States to at least be familiar with perhaps the greatest game of brinksmanship every played by an American President. Especially, since the Press Secretary usually fires the first shot in any game of brinksmanship. I also agree that it is not too much to expect the President of the United States to use proper grammar. This man still does not know when to use “a” and “an” or “me” or “I”. He is rather conversant in the use of “give it up for” and “in the house”.
Just checked out the links to NPR and CBS. What amazes me is the caliber of people who rise to preeminence in national politics. How did America ever become so entranced with this Cult of Stupidity?
Her best line was delivered at the CSM breakfast;
“The press secretary took a little dig at the incoming president for attacking Bush’s policy on Guantanamo throughout the campaign. “All of a sudden, ‘Gosh it’s so complicated to close Guantanamo Bay,’” she said.