The cynicism of Bush's press secretary

From PoliticalWire.com, 11/24/08:

Quote of the Day

"I'll give you eight months." -- White House press secretary Dana Perino, quoted by the Washington Post, on how long the "glowing press" will continue for President-elect Obama.

Comment by Tribunus Plebis:

There is as much cynicism and arrogance as ignorance in this remark by Dana Perino, for these reasons. First, she clearly believes that negative media coverage received by a president is at some point automatic, rather than based on a president's performance. To the extent it's automatic, that means her boss, W., got negative media through no fault of his own. (She'd obviously like to believe that, since her daily veneration of her boss seems to be coming from an alternate universe in which he has not in fact botched most aspects of his presidency.) Second, it's presumptuous if not arrogant for her to assume that Obama's ability to govern in a way that doesn't trigger the usual inside-the-Beltway attacks is no greater than any other politician -- she is essentially devaluing his ability to do better than the norm. Third, given the multiple crises facing the nation, and the consequent greater unpredictability of events, she has utterly no idea what might condition media coverage of Obama (other than his own performance) in eight months' time. So her remark, like most everything else from the Bush White House in the past eight years, was simultaneously glib, dismissive and simply wrong.