At the tender age of 7,Dana Perinohad the opportunity to visit the White House.
Lessons and Advice From the Bright Side."
Perino responded with a ‘hell yes,’ and the rest is history.
The year was 2007, and President George Bush’s term was ending in 18 months.
Perino decided that it was time to head out the door.
“He said, ‘The president would like to make you the press secretary on Monday.'”
Perino did not see it coming.
She added that she had some doubts about taking on the job.
Still, she decided to seize the opportunity.
Perino, however, made history as the very first Republican woman to step into the role.
Her transition into the job came with some hiccups, however.
Despite some of thesehilarious mishaps, Dana Perinotook her job very seriously.
She also knew that Tony Snow did a stellar job and was nervous about filling his shoes.
Perino did just that and ended up making the job look easy.
It was the first time Perino ever set foot in the Oval, but her stay was very short.
During an interview withPage Six, Perino revealed how it all went down.
Bush called Bartlett and gave it to him straight.
“The president says, ‘Wait, I’m not doing an interview with that guy.
Well, that was a big miscommunication,'” Perino recalled.
“it’s possible for you to imagine who won that argument,” she added.
Once the president had dealt with Bartlett, he turned on Perino.
It’s become her motto since.
“The president’s example and lessons of forgiveness in politics is something I utilize daily.
You have to be able to think on your feet and deal with pushy and sometimes downright rude reporters.
“[S]he wasn’t paying attention to the rest of the briefing.
And I think that was the right formula for me,” she told the outlet.
“I never think of the press as an enemy.
“The onus is on us to work harder to help reporters understand it,” she said.
That is, until one of them decided to throw their shoes at President Bush’s head.
She’s crying but I don’t know what happened.'”
After his address, Bush approached Perino to hear what the matter was.
“[H]e put his arm around me […] and he said, ‘What happened?
Other times, however, she needed a stronger coping mechanism.
She had to find another way to deal with them, and she did.
“I apologized to the reporters, I apologized to President Bush and I also say that who knows?
maybe the reporters were flipping me off too,” she said.
“My experiences weren’t only good because I knew Republicans.
I had a lot of friends from both sides of the aisle,” she said.
Thanks to her love for mingling, Perino and Obama hit it off right away.
“[W]e laughed our butts off for hours,” she recalled.
Perino was excited to take on the job.
“On trips … with a skeletal staff, I doubled as the makeup artist.
“The last seven months were the hardest,” she admits in her book.
