While snow may have delayed it for a day, the latest edition of We're History is available now on-line. It aired on Wednesday, Feb. 2 -- a Ground Hog Day special of sorts as this was a bit of a retread of one of our episodes from the 2008 season.
This script had some of the elements of the episode we did when George Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan came out with his book, accusing his superiors of making him lie for the president.
The recently departed Robert Gibbs did not have a similar moment, and in the course of getting this episode out some of the comments on Gibbs were cut for time. We do review the two great schools -- former journalists and advisers/PR types/friends of the president. Gibbs certainly was more of the adviser-friend to Obama.
The new press secretary swings back toward the former journalist pro with Jay Carney. We saw that within Bush's world -- Tony Snow as the famous journalist who left and was replaced by McClellan, then Dana Perino.
McClellan does give me the chance to bring back up the great story of Gerald Ford's one-month spokesman in Jerald terHorst. terHorst resigned when he felt Ford and the White House mislead him, famously saying:
I cannot in good conscious support your decision to pardon former President Nixon
You can read the whole thing with this image from WikiPedia.
As for Gibbs, he leaves us with a great quote for the social media age. In speaking of what needs to happen when dealing with real-time or social media:
The best way to fight rumor is with fact. If you don't fight rumor, it becomes truth.
And of course, no remembrance of PR types is complete without two Ron Ziegler quotes:
This is the operative statement. All other statements are inoperative.
Plus:
If my answers sound confusing, I think they are confusing because the questions are confusing and the situation is confusing.
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