It wasn't White House spin, it was just petulance and foolish. Dana Perino has had a week now to think about what she said. I've stopped holding my breath.
When the White House press secretary appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, no doubt many thought how nice the Bush spokesman could joke about the disastrous administration. And it is nice. Humor is a good thing and important. If Dana Perino wants to trade quips during a war, fair enough. She put herself on the hot seat in doing it, so she gets points for that.
What she doesn't get points for is sliming one of the legendary journalists in American history, Helen Thomas. In an off-handed cheap shot, Ms. Perino complained about answering questions from Thomas that were "not based on fact."
Helen Thomas has been covering the news for 57 years. That's 23 years longer than Dana Perino has been alive. Ms. Thomas was the first woman officer of the National Press Club, and the first woman president of the White House Correspondents Association. In 1998 White House Correspondents Association created the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award -- which she won, as the first recipient.
And Dana Perino complains about questions from Helen Thomas "not based on fact."
If she would have given just one example, that would have been preferable. Actually, it would have been shocking. Unprecedented.
But examples or not, it's impossible to ignore the incongruity of hearing such a complaint from an administration that is not based on fact. This is an administration, after all, whose one legacy is a war based on a 16-word lie and the non-existence of WMD. An administration that has press officials rewrite scientific reports. An administration that creates PR videos as fake news reports to ship to TV stations and even creates fake news reporters. An administration that has repeatedly tried to make war heroes into friends of the enemy, and a deserter into a hero. An administration that puts down the "reality-based" world. In fact, as far as facts go, it's an administration that exists despite receiving fewer votes than its opponent.
And Dana Perino complains about questions from Helen Thomas "not based on fact."
Based on the White House track record, it would be a fair assumption (indeed, the only assumption) that Perino's very implication is not based on fact.
And even this would be less offensive if not for Ms. Perino's own joking admission last year on the NPR game show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
There, she revealed a story about being asked a question during an October 26, 2007, press briefing. It related to remarks by Russian President Putin, comparing U.S. actions in Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis.
"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," she laughed, referring to the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear face-off. Though uncertain, she had a feeling that "it had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."
(Note: This is like guessing that a birthday has to do with birth and a day. I'm pretty sure.)
"I came home and I asked my husband," she told the radio host, Peter Sagal. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.' "
It was such an oh-so-adorable story, and everyone at the show laughed and laughed. Okay, it was an embarrassed laugh, knowing that this is the spokesperson for our government's leader, just asked an important question concerning the president of Russia, current events, and the central crisis of the late-20th century when the world was on the edge of nuclear war. But it was oh-so-adorable that she told the story on herself. Good points for that.
But it would have been much less oh-so-adorable if everyone knew what Dana Perino's answer had been when asked that important question. She didn't admit her ignorance. She didn't tap-dance a fair-minded answer that avoided answering. Both would have been the decent thing to do. No, instead, she told the reporter off. "Well, I think that the historical comparison is not -- does not exactly work."
What she did was...well, she said the question was not based on fact. All the while (as she later acknowledged) she didn't have a clue what she was talking about.
That's not adorable. That's irresponsible. And that's a pattern. And as much as there are other people who don't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis is, there are two responses to that -- 1) you should know, because it's that important. (There have even been two movies about it.) And 2) you're not the White House press secretary whose job is to know about world-changing events at the core of White House history, so that he or she can speak on behalf of our government in an honest, fair, informed way.
And it didn't happen very long ago. Only during the Kennedy administration. If Dana Perino wanted to know about it, she could have just asked a reporter right there in the press room whose first White House assignment was during that same Kennedy presidency. The reporter's name is Helen Thomas.