Dana Perino: 'Pulling back the curtain'

by Mark Silva

Dana Perino, who will deliver her 145th and final televised White House press briefing this morning, offers a certain insight into why the departing President George W. Bush has attempted to be as gracious as possible about his successor, President-elect Barack Obama, and the transition of power underway following a campaign that essentially employed Bush as a punching bag.

"This is a remarkable thing I've learned about 'Bush 41' and his son,'' the 43rd president, Perino said this morning of the two Bush presidents. "They are the most forgiving people.''

During the campaign, when Sen. Hillary Clinton would say something extremely critical of Bush, or when Obama would, the president, she says, would always ask his aides to stand down.

"His guidance to me was, to not rise to the bait,'' Perino said over a breakfast with reporters this morning - a welcome ritual of this town, the Christian Science Monitor breakfast. "There were days when I could not believe that we were going to let that go... I think that because he has this ability to let it all go, that's one of the reasons it's been so professional... It's in all of our interests for the country to succeed... and I think that's one of the reasons we've had such a good transition.''

And Bush, Perino says, actually was "overcome'' with emotion the night he watched the public celebrations of Obama's victory - something that Bush too mentioned at his final press conference this morning. She was watching TV news with him.

"I can tell you that on election night, he was overcome with emotion,'' Perino said. "We watched the news channels together. We saw so many people telling the news channels that they never thought they'd see the day where an African-American would be elected... and President Bush was overcome.''

Bush leaves town today for his last weekend at the presidential retreat, Camp David, with his family, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser Steve Hadley and Chief of Staff Josh Bolten. No late nights for the "early-to-bed kind of guy'' who prefers staying at home. "He's a nester,'' Perino says.

Perino, who stepped into her position as the ailing and since deceased Press Secretary Tony Snow was stepping aside, plans to leave town Tuesday night for a family vacation in Scotland, a trip to Abu Dhabi with her husband, an international businessman, and then a month in South Africa - two weeks of vacation and two weeks of volunteering at one of Bush's PEPFAR-sponsored programs providing retro anti-viral drugs to AIDS victims.

Soon she will step to the podium of the James Brady Press Briefing Room - stepping up to a platform erected for the just-5-foot-something spokeswoman at 10:45 am EST for one last turn with the press.

Perino -- who harbors none of the book-writing ambitions of her predecessors - allows that, in a Bush White House famous for its total control of the message and leak-proof policies, except when it suited their needs, she has tried to "pull back the curtain'' to let people see more of a president whose sagging public approval ratings she has some difficulty understanding.

Perino also leaves with a certain lament for the shrinking news business, as evidenced by the dwindling Washington news buureas.. She worked as a television news reporter, covering the Illinois legislature in Springfield, after attending graduate school in Illinois. She started in public affairs on Capitol Hill in 1995.

"I grew up as a consumer of the news,'' she said. "We grew up in Denver which was, at the time and still is, for now, a two-newspaper city... When I came home from school, I had to choose two articles from the newspaper that I had to discuss with (her father). My dad was the one playing the devil's advocate, because we were always debating at the dinner table, which served me well all my life...

" I'm of the belief that the world needs more reporters, not fewer,'' she said. "I'm troubled... by all of the news organizations that are shrinking.''

She allows that she won't missing waking up at 4:15 am to get a work out in before heading to an office where the president started working before 7 am and the first staff meetings started earlier than that. She won't miss the deluge of emails either - after clearing out nearly 1,000 in her inbox Friday, she returned to the office on Monday to find 2,000 awaiting here.

She does look forward to volunteering at the PEPFAR program, Living Home, run by Rev. John Thomas. "I told them I'd do anything from painting walls to being a participant in the after-school program.''

She does not look forward to writing a book, though has toyed with some ideas about Republican women in Washington.

"I would never write a book that was degrading to somebody else, that was written at the expense of someone else, to improve my life,'' she said, with what would appear to be an allusion to the critical book that former Press Secretary Scott McClellan wrote.

"I don't have a journal so much as photographs,'' she said, noting one picturing her with a shiner froma jostling in Baghdad after the president ducked two shoes thrown at him at a pres conference - "the recent shoe incident and my black eye.''

Is Bush melancholy at departure?

"While wistful at times, I think he's also very excited about building his library and institute, but also spending more time with Mrs. Bush,'' she said. He will be making coffee for his wife, but he won't be getting the president's daily intelligence briefing any more. "With that comes some concern, but also a sense of relief.''

This reporter asked about the administration's inability to let the public see a personal side of the president - a side that some of the town's reporters saw in off-the-record conversations with Bush in the White House, designed, we believed, to soften our view of the president during controversial times. We saw a man the public never saw, one who spoke of his personal readings, his personal views and his reflections on world events and leaders.

"They weren't meant to soften your view of him,'' Perino maintained. "They were meant to inform you... I did try, I think, to try to pull back the curtain a little bit so that people get to know President Bush... That was one of my goals, to pull back the curtain a little bit and to let people to know the man I know, a man of personal decency....''

And that leads to the question of the president's final low approval ratings - with the press secretary wondering why they attach to his name these days like a dubious honorific.

"I don't get the public approval ratings,'' she said. "Why does every story have to include 'the unpopular president.'

"I understand that's the way it is.... I think that when a president is confronted with the very tough issues that a president is... you're going to make tough decisions that aren't popular.''

"One of the things I've learned from President Bush is not to worry so much about what is happening as what to do about it.''