What Perino doesn’t know can hurt us

April 12, 2007

I noted this morning that the White House, in its desperate attempt to spin its controversial alternate communications system, ran into a problem: last week, spokesperson Dana Perino claimed only a “handful” of White House staffers used RNC email accounts. This morning we learned that 22 current WH aides — and 50 staffers altogether — have taken advantage of the RNC communications system.

At this afternoon’s briefing, reporters asked how a “handful” became a few dozen. Perino’s response was less than persuasive.

QUESTION: On March 27th, at this podium, you said that there were only a handful of White House aides who had used political RNC accounts. Now you’re saying 22; that doesn’t sound like a handful.

PERINO: Well, I didn’t know how many there were.

Perhaps not, but that’s not how a White House spokesperson is supposed to convey information to reporters and the nation. If Perino says a “handful” of White House staffers are using RNC email accounts, we’re supposed to believe that a “handful” of White House staffers are using RNC email accounts.

Today, Perino offered the rarely used I-didn’t-know-what-I-was-talking-about response. She was rather casual about it, too. “Oh that?” Perino seemed to be saying, “I was just pulling a response out of my ear. You can’t take that seriously.”

Seriously, how is anyone supposed to know when Perino is saying things she means and when she’s just making up answers out of thin air? To hear her explain it today, we can’t know the difference. At this rate, Perino is will on her way to building the exact same level of credibility her predecessors enjoyed, which is to say, none at all.

As Faiz put it, “Apparently, Perino believes if you don’t know the truth, you’re allowed to make up whatever you want.”

Here’s the transcript, from ThinkProgress, which also has the breathtaking video clip of all of this.

QUESTION: On March 27th, at this podium, you said that there were only a handful of White House aides who had used political RNC accounts. Now you’re saying 22; that doesn’t sound like a handful.

PERINO: Well, I didn’t know how many there were. And I think that, again, if you look at the number of people that work at the White House, almost 2,000, to have 22 people that — I mean, obviously, I grant you it’s a very large handful, but it’s still a relatively small number.

And it’s based on the people who have responsibilities — both White House official responsibilities but that also have responsibilities, in their job description, to do political activities.

And to make sure that they didn’t violate the Hatch Act, they had access to this other equipment.

QUESTION: But then the L.A. Times, today, quotes Scott (inaudible) as saying that there were about 50 aides.

PERINO: I think the 22 is current — current White House employees.

PERINO: We’re looking — if you have 50 over the course of the administration.

QUESTION: At that March 27th briefing as well, you said that Fred Fielding, the White House counsel, was in touch with the RNC general counsel to make sure that there was archiving taking place. And when pressed on it, you said that these were not archived just since Henry Waxman had asked you about it on the Hill, that they had been archived for a very long time. So how would…

PERINO: And I think that’s going back to those a few weeks ago. This is how we have developed a better understanding of how the RNC archived or did not archive certain e-mails. As I said, folks like Karl Rove, e-mails using this equipment, go back to being archived to 2004.

The extent of how many people had these accounts, I didn’t have it readily at my fingertips. I understood it to be a handful of people. I knew that it would be at least some, if not all, of the people that worked in the Office of Political Affairs. […]

QUESTION: But what you’ve said has shifted even over the last couple of weeks.

PERINO: Give me an example of that.

QUESTION: Fifty, 22, handful.

PERINO: And I explained that. I think — you have to admit that when I said a handful I was asked based on something that I didn’t know.

Yes, the reporter “has to admit” that Perino was making it up as she went along. If you say so, Dana.

And I thought Tony Snow was bad. Dana Pinocchio is good, but she’s trying to swim with a concrete purse. Nobody is going to be able to spin this disaster.

I love the “you have to admit” BS. Can the reporters put questions that way?

“Dana, you have to admit that the majority of people think that your boss is full of crap. That said, why should we believe that the emails were accidentally misplaced instead of deliberately destroyed?”

  • Drip, drip, drip. That’s what many of us were writing about the Bushies last year as the White House kept taking more hits from its screw-ups great and small. It took a lot of drops, but the Republics got drenched in the mid-terms.

    It seems it will take a lot of drops to wash these feckless half-wits’ credibility away, but they keep coming. Every week, it seems. For the moment, there’s the active U. S. Prosecutors scandal that has given birth to the blossoming White House e-mail scandal.

    Now, there’s a little extra salt in the wounds with our hero, Paul Wolfowitz of Neocon and World Bank fame having to admit he installed his girlfriend as a “highly paid” employee of the World bank.

    The hits just keep on coming. So do the chickens. “Avian Flu,” we might call it.

  • Now, there’s a little extra salt in the wounds with our hero, Paul Wolfowitz of Neocon and World Bank fame having to admit he installed his girlfriend as a “highly paid” employee of the World bank.

    Oh, yeah, NPR was all over that angle this morning. Oh, wait…

  • Why are we saying these emails were lost? They are not laying behind the furnace, in between the issues of the Life magazine. They were erased. Lost sounds like an accident. Erased sounds like a crime, doesn’t it?

  • ***Drip, drip, drip.***
    ————————————Alibubba

    Reminds me of a line from the movie, “Stalag 17.” The commandant (played by Otto Preminger) retorts to the prisoners:

    “…but there will be delousing—with ice water, from the fire hoses.”

    So Ali—where you want I should set up the hydrants?

  • She is in totally over her head, which is about par for most of Bush’s people. On top of that she seem a little stupid, which would make a job where you have to think fast and think smart all the more difficult. I would feel sorry for her but considering who she works for I won’t everyone over there gets what they deserve.

  • Lying to the American people; shameful is putting this gently. The Ms. Perino model of the White House spokesperson requires reprogramming… Karl. Another one with a “faulty memory.”

    When will the major “American” news corporations file suit in court for such blatantly illegal behavior? Surely, our “liberal media” will hone right in on this one. It’ll be the light-hearted, funny story on CNN tomorrow about how the cute-dumb-blonde White House spokesperson had a “blonde moment.”

  • #4 ChiTownReader

    Emails erased not lost.

    Exactly right. If the left can’t even manage to get that right they should get out of politics and go play Risk with the trolls.

  • Just as the 60’s TV show “The Prisoner” had a new Number 2 each week, so too the Bush White House should have a new improved clueless spokesperson every Monday. That could give them a handy mechanism for getting over all sorts of little continuity errors.

  • I agree with post #4

    Why are we talking about e-mails being lost? There are NOT lost. As I see it there are 2 options:

    1) They are deleted on purpose. Deleting e-mails considering the protection act would make this a crime. But I’ll allow the White House’s eventual spin of accidental deletion, because it would be interesting to see how they would explain to a jury that they ‘accidentally’ deleted about 5 million e-mails?

    or

    2) They are deliberately withholding the e-mails. This would be a crime as well (obstruction of justice) Of course, I’ll allow the White House their make belief of thinking that if they stall long enough, the public and Congress will lose interest. If Congress keeps insisting, then they can resort to option 1 and still have them ‘accidentally’ deleted by a low-level person who just resigned, or any other disaster that sounds believable.

    Either way it’s a criminal offense.

    In regards to Dana Perino and her explanation that she pulled that answer out of her ear; does that mean that from now on, any journalist that is ‘allowed’ to ask a question is permitted to have a claification after each of her answers…. “Mrs Perino, did you pull this answer out of your ear, or did you do actual fact checking?: 🙂

  • Sounding more and more like the minister of ‘propaganda’ in the last moments of Irag, broadcasting over the airways that there were no American troops at the airport, that the ‘guard’ had defeated the American onslaught as he ran to catch his plane. They keep lying even when it’s so totally obvious they’re lying. Just doing my job doesn’t make it right. It merely demonstrates a total lack of integrity Dana. Have you lost all self respect like Tony Snow who shows that the better you can lie then the better you are doing your “job”. Pathetic.

  • I take exception to the Carpetbaggers’ implication that Perino’s predecessors enjoyed no credibility.
    Former press secretary Scott McClellan was not nearly the liar or buffoon the new crop of faces are. The pained expression on his face he made as he tried to find words that sounded good while telling the truth is now a fond memory. I miss you Mr. McClellan. You were a kindred spirit; utterly lost in a situation not of your making, but of your most unfortunate choosing.
    Perhaps we’ll see you again in the cadre of a leader worthy of your integrity, if not your judgment and luck.

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