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)

WASHINGTON - Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan, whose explosive new book brimming with withering criticism of his former bosses in Bush administration, said he is thinking about voting for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In an interview Thursday night with MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” the former spokesman for President George W. Bush said he was “intrigued by what Sen. Obama has been running on about changing the way Washington works.” 

In his tell-all book, “What Happened — Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” presents himself as a one-time true Bush believer who mistakenly fell in line behind a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq.

McClellan said he also has respect for Republican candidate John McCain “for the way he has worked across the aisle with Democrats.” He says he is still considering who to support.

“I’m going to take my time and think it through,” McClellan told Olbermann, a harsh critic of Bush and his conservative allies.

McClellan began a publicity tour for his book on Thursday and gave his first television interviews to NBC, which has come under fire from the White House for its handling of a recent interview with Bush and comments he made about Iran.