She represented President George W. Bush before the world’s media and now is a commentator for Fox News. And she’s been quite a vocal critic of the current White House.

But he nominated her anyway.

President Barack Obama nominated his predecessor’s press secretary, Dana Perino, to the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors.

We asked Perino about it, and she told us that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell put her name forward for the position.

“I was honored that Senator McConnell recommended me, and humbled when I found out it was accepted. I look forward to meeting the senators and to hopefully earning their support for confirmation.”

Yup, she still has to get the Senate’s stamp of approval.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Perino at White House daily press briefing in 2007)

After taking a long, well-deserved vacation after being chief spokeswoman at the White House for President George W. Bush, Dana Perino has rejoined the working world by joining the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.

She will be the firm’s “Chief Issues Counselor” advising clients on a range of issues and will find herself alongside some old Republican friends as well as quite a few Democrats.

Burson-Marsteller’s chief executive is pollster and strategist Mark Penn who worked for Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid in 2008. The firm’s roster also includes Don Baer who was Bill Clinton’s director of strategic planning and communications as well as Karen Hughes, a key member of Bush’s inner circle during his presidency and Republican strategist Charlie Black.

Perino will report to Josh Gottheimer who was a speechwriter for Bill Clinton as well as John Kerry who lost the 2004 presidential campaign to Perino’s former boss, according to a statement by the firm.

“Dana is the latest addition to an already deep bipartisan bench of former presidential advisers,” Penn said. “She has performed one of the most demanding jobs in Washington. We know the skills and judgment she honed in her time at the White House will serve our clients well.”

After leaving the White House, Perino traveled to South Africa and volunteered in an AIDS/HIV clinic. And as many administration officials do after they leave office, she has popped up occasionally on cable television to talk about her old boss and the new White House occupant.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Perino at a White House press briefing in 2008)

Barack Obama’s press secretary unlocked the door to the White House press room Tuesday and was a bit surprised by how quickly reporters swarmed around him hungry for information.

The door which acts as the barrier between the reporters’ den and the offices of White House press staff had been locked since mid-morning as the Bush White House cleared out before Obama’s people arrived.

There were no missing computer keyboard keys, but the email was not fully functional yet, Robert Gibbs said. Asked if all the “O” keys were there, he replied with a laugh, “all the keys are intact, it’s just that I don’t know the code to get in.”

When former President Bill Clinton’s administration left the White House, the incoming administration of President George W. Bush found that some of the “W” letters had been removed from keyboards.

Gibbs said he has seen the bullet-proof vest that has been handed down by White House press secretaries to their successors over the years but had not had a chance to read the most recent note left in the pocket by Bush’s spokeswoman Dana Perino.

“Dana showed me where it was and told me to read it early, but I have not had a chance to do that yet,” he said.

“I assume one of the notes said don’t unlock the door,” he joked.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama with Gibbs in Chicago in early January)

WASHINGTON - She got ‘em.

White House press secretaries probably dream of turning the tables on reporters and having a public laugh at their expense. Well Dana Perino got that wish.

The briefing room was packed to overflowing on Friday for Perino’s final say as spokeswoman for President George W. Bush, who leaves office next week.

“So much history has happened at the White House, and much of it occurred right here in this room,” she began.

Then followed a slide show of journalists in action over the years – working on a crossword puzzle during a briefing, apparently trying to grow a mustache, snoozing in chairs outside.

It was all good-natured humor and Perino probably got more laughs at her 145th and final briefing than any previous ones.

“I wish my successor, Robert Gibbs, all the very best. Please go easy on him — for a week,” Perino said.

She mentioned predecessors Tony Snow and Ari Fleischer, but not Scott McClellan who wrote a book full of criticism of the Bush White House.

Perino brushed off a question about the omission with “no harm meant, I just didn’t mention him.”

In a long tradition of White House press secretaries Perino has written a note and put it into the pocket of a bullet-proof vest that has been passed down through the years. But no word on what it says.

Asked whether she would do the job again the answer was unequivocal.

“If given a chance to do it over again, would I? Yes. But would I ever come back and do this? No. No.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Perino says good bye at last press briefing)

It’s not a day to move house in Washington. The U.S. capital woke up to a face-stinging hypothermic cold that had early morning commuters walking just a little bit faster to get to the heated comfort of their offices.
 
But it’s packing day for the Bush administration. As White House staffers move out, ahead of President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday, President George W. Bush’s spokeswoman Dana Perino will give her last news conference.
 
Over at the State Department, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will attend a farewell ceremony closed to the press. It follows Bush’s televised farewell address to Americans on Thursday night in which he defended his record after eight tumultuous years in office. 
 

Obama meanwhile says he is still tinkering with his inaugural address, but that there is a “good solid draft” that he is happy with. In an interview with USA Today, he rated the addresses given by Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“I will point out that JFK’s speech is the second best … Lincoln first. You know, FDR’s actually isn’t that great. It’s got a great line. `The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.` The rest is kind of clunky.”

  
Television morning shows eschewed political coverage in favored  of what they dubbed “Miracle on the Hudson”, hailing the heroism and skill of a U.S. Airways pilot after he safely ditched his plane with 155 people aboard into the frigid waters of New York’s Hudson River.
 
(Photographer: Reuters/Jason Reed) President George W. Bush walks off after his final address to the nation at the White House

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush, who has stayed out of the public eye in the final days before the election to choose his successor, knows his popularity has suffered, but the White House insists he will have no problem looking in the mirror when he returns to Texas.

Bush spent the weekend at Camp David and has no public events on Monday or Tuesday. He last spoke with his preferred successor Republican John McCain on Sept. 25, the day of a White House meeting on the financial bailout.

McCain has actively campaigned to distance himself from the unpopular 43rd U.S. president, rarely appearing with Bush since capturing the Republican presidential nomination in March.

“Everybody would like to be popular. We can all remember that back in high school, everyone really wanted to be popular, and some of us just weren’t,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on the eve of the election.

“But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have principles and values that you stayed true to. And that’s what this president has done, and that’s what he’s taught a lot of us, including me,” she said.

The Iraq war has been one of the key reasons for Bush’s unpopularity at home and overseas. However, Bush believes he made the right decision to order a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, Perino said.

“And when he goes home to Texas, President Bush will be able to look in the mirror and know that he was true to his values and true to his principles, and that’s what keeps him going,” she said.

Bush and his wife, Laura, plan to live in Dallas and at the Crawford, Texas, ranch after leaving the White House. Bush plans to create the “Freedom Institute” on the campus of Southern Methodist University which will also host his presidential library.

Bush will watch the election results from the White House, where a small private dinner is planned in the residence with senior aides.

“President Bush remains hopeful that John McCain will pull it out tomorrow night and will win the election,” Perino said. McCain has been trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama in most national opinion polls.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Bush leaves the Oval Office headed for his Marine One flight to Camp David)

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush, who said in March he would find ample time to campaign for Republican White House contender John McCain, is going to spend the last weekend of the 2008 race at, well, Camp David.

Bush has record low job approval ratings due to the prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the sour economy. He will leave Friday for the U.S. presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland and will remain secluded until Sunday, according to his public schedule released late Tuesday evening.

“The president is pretty focused on the activities that we have here, especially getting this economy back in order,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. “As we’ve said for a while, the president was going to be focusing on this.”

When the economic crisis unfolded and Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast, Bush canceled plans to attend several fundraisers around the country and sometimes sent surrogates in his place, including his wife Laura Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

And as rival White House contender Democrat Barack Obama sought to paint McCain as an extension of the current president, McCain went to great lengths to distance himself from Bush.

During the campaign, McCain met three times publicly with Bush: once when he clinched the Republican nomination at the White House, a brief appearance at the Phoenix airport after a closed-door fundraiser they attended together, and then last month at the White House during a meeting on the financial bailout package.

McCain also last week blasted Bush in an interview with the Washington Times newspaper, saying “We just let things get completely out of hand.”

During the 2000 election, then-President Bill Clinton was largely cast aside by the Democratic hopeful Al Gore who sought to distance himself from the sex scandal that nearly took Clinton down. Instead Clinton spent much of his time working to elect his wife to the U.S. Senate.

So as the final weekend before election day approaches and McCain trails in most polls (narrowly in some), Bush will spend it the sidelines.

“He’s going to focus on being with Mrs. Bush and others this weekend at Camp David,” Perino said.

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- Photo credit: White House (Bush fills out his election ballot)