And the Good News Is... Page 13

  We got through that news cycle and I forgot about Scott’s book for several months. Before its release, the White House counsel’s office had a copy for several weeks (to do a check for any security or classified information concerns) but didn’t reveal anything to me until the night before it was released in May 2008. And that’s when I knew how bad it was.

  As predicted, the media ate it up—“former staffer tears into President Bush” and all that. It was another way for the press to say that President Bush was unpopular and that he’d even lost the confidence of a former loyal staffer. The press loves that kind of stuff.

  While I’m usually pretty calm, at least on the surface, this book was tearing me apart. I fretted over how I’d answer every question. I was an uncharacteristic wreck.

  One morning that week I skipped my 6:30 a.m. meeting with Steve Hadley, the National Security Advisor, and told my deputy to go without me and explain that I needed every second to prepare for the briefing since I knew it would be about the book.

  A few minutes later, Hadley knocked on my door. Tall and thin with round glasses, he’s the gentlest and politest person in Washington. He said, “May I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  “I understand that you’re concerned about Scott’s book,” he said, taking a seat across from me.

  “Yes, I am, because the coverage is so bad and it’s not going to end for a long time and—” I said.

  “I know it seems bad,” he interrupted. “But I have to tell you that I’ve worked for three presidents—Reagan, Bush 41, and this President. And a President never knows who it’s going to be that writes something like this while they’re in office, but it’s always going to be somebody. So a President can’t worry about it. He just has to do his best and make decisions without regard to who might want to write a book in the middle of his administration.”

  I thanked him for putting it in perspective, but after he left, I went right back to reading all of the negative stories and taking notes on the questions I thought the press would ask that day.

  At 6:40 a.m., my phone rang. The display said, “Oval Office.” It was unusual to get a call from there that early in the morning.

  I answered and Karen Keller, the President’s executive assistant, said that the President wanted to see me. I put on my jacket and walked the thirty steps to the Oval. As I entered the outer Oval, Hadley was walking out. He smiled at me sheepishly, and I realized he’d told the President I needed shoring up over Scott’s book.

  President Bush was writing personal correspondence to families of the fallen and getting prepared for his daily intelligence briefing. It made my issues seem very petty. He had his reading glasses on the end of his nose, and as I walked in, he put down his pen. He looked at me over his glasses.

  “So I hear you’re upset about this book,” he said.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” I said, adding that I wanted to make sure he knew how bad the coverage was and how I was concerned it would last.

  His answer surprised me. “I’d like you to try to forgive him,” he said.

  “But I—” I started.

  “No buts. I don’t want you to live bitterly like he is. Nobody will remember this book three weeks from now. And we can’t let a book like this take us away from the important work we have to do here on behalf of the American people.”

  I glanced down at the letter he was writing and said, “Well, can I throw him under the bus first?”

  “No,” he said with a smile.

  “Okay, thank you, sir.” I turned around to leave the office. As I crossed the threshold, he called after me. I stopped and turned around and he said, “Hey—by the way, I don’t think you’d ever do this to me.”

  And that’s when I realized that sometimes the President knew me better than I knew myself. I’d been worried that the close personal relationship that we shared would be shattered by the violation of trust by someone we used to work with. He realized I needed to hear that he knew that I’d never be disloyal to him. I was hugely relieved.

  I got back to my desk and scooped up all of those newspapers and threw them in the recycling bin. I was done with that book and all the negativity that came with it.

  The President’s suggestion of forgiveness freed me, like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. It’s a lesson I try to remember for all sorts of situations in life when I feel slighted and disappointed by others. And it was a blessing to have the President of the United States be the one to remind me to let it go.

  Family Ties

  Working for the President is amazing not just for the staffers but also for their families. My mom, sister, brother-in-law, aunt, and uncle all got to meet President Bush in chance-of-a-lifetime encounters they’ll never forget. The President had an amazing talent to recall stories about our families, because he was very interested in the people who worked for him. And it was because of his interest that he helped repair a relationship in my own family that was very important to me.

  I’d personally come to know the President very well because of the travel we did together. As the deputy press secretary, I handled a lot of the evening, weekend, and holiday trips, and that was when we’d talk more casually. The other deputies and I called ourselves the “B team” though he assured us we were his favorites.

  One of my first trips was on Marine One when we traveled to an event in rural Virginia for the Boy Scouts Jamboree. Bad weather had kept the President from attending for two days, but on the third night, he insisted he was going and the Secret Service acquiesced and said he could depart.

  On the way home, he wanted to share his peanut butter and honey sandwiches with the chief of staff, Andy Card, and me. I declined, not wanting to eat his dinner. But the President said, “Oh come on—have a sandwich.” So I took half and a handful of Sun Chips (no cheddar—he doesn’t like those) and we munched during the ride. The sun began to set as we left to return to the White House, and we talked just like friends. I loosened up and started chatting. I remember every moment of that ride—including the orange and pink sunset that lasted the entire flight.

  The President liked hearing about my family’s Western ranching roots and asked me about my mom, my dad, and my sister. Being an animal lover, he even asked about my family pets, especially my dog, Henry. He was the kind of person you could open up to, dropping any formalities even though he was the Commander in Chief.

  Eventually over those first months of traveling together, the President heard my story that my parents had divorced in 2000 and that I took it very hard. Even though I was an adult when they split, I still felt somewhat abandoned and alone.

  My dad and I had always been very close and had shared a love of political discussion and news consumption, but over the years after I’d moved away and he and my mom broke up, I didn’t see him very often. And at the end of the eight years in the White House, he still had not been to D.C. to visit or seen me brief the press. He’d missed out on the White House magic. I had one last chance to change that.

  In the middle of the financial crisis on Columbus Day in 2008, Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy was coming for a dinner at the White House. Mrs. Bush planned a small event and invited me—I was grateful to be included as the Italian-Americans would be there in force. I almost always took my husband to those events—he loved everything about the White House and would get emotionally patriotic, but this time I had another idea. I decided to invite my dad to the dinner, but I prepared myself that he might not accept. To my surprise, he did, so Peter arranged the flights and rented him a tux. It would be my dad’s first black-tie event.

  I didn’t tell the President that my dad was coming. He had so much on his mind that small talk and dinner parties were not something I wanted to bring up. But he’d noticed that my dad was on the guest list when he and Mrs. Bush were looking over it one morning before we headed out for an event.

  I was already seated on Marine One when the President came out of the Diplomatic Reception Room. There were l
ots of people cheering for him as he walked across the lawn and boarded the chopper. As he sat down, he looked out the window and waved at the crowd.

  Without looking at me, he said, “So I see you’ve invited your dad to the White House.”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “That’s a big deal,” he said, still waving to the crowd.

  “Yes, sir. It’s a pretty big deal,” I said quietly. We sat in silence for a few moments.

  Marine One had lifted off the ground, and then, just as we were passing the Washington Monument, the President looked me right in the eye and said, “And I am so proud of you.”

  He could really capture a moment, and he didn’t try to rush emotions. He let them sit. I was touched the President knew what it meant to me and that, despite all he had going on, he knew that telling me he was proud was the most valuable thing I could hear. That would have been enough for me, but the best part was yet to come.

  The night of the dinner arrived. I was trying to contain my excitement to show my dad everything all at once, so I played it cool—like it was perfectly normal to roam the halls of the White House.

  The first person we saw was Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He gave me a huge hug. Then there were Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Sam Alito. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was also there. They were giving me all sorts of praise in front of my dad, and I think it was a bit overwhelming for him. I know it was for me.

  We joined the line to be announced to the President and Mrs. Bush, Secretary Rice, and Prime Minister Berlusconi. Before the military escort could announce us, however, President Bush said, “Oh, I know who this is! LEO PERINO! We have been looking forward to your visit for years! Have you met Condi.…”

  And then the President took my dad off my hands and started showing him around. My dad and I weren’t seated together for the dinner, so I just trusted he was fine. Thoughtfully, Mrs. Bush had sat him next to other Wyomingites, the Cheneys. The White House chef, working closely with Anita McBride, the First Lady’s chief of staff, served squash soup, artichoke ravioli, and lamb with crispy eggplant and chard. The dessert was special: a chocolate napoleon called the Santa Maria.

  At the end of the evening as we walked out of the White House, I tried to gauge my dad’s reaction. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” I said.

  “It sure is…” replied my dad, a bit of wonder in his voice as we drove away. The White House magic had worked its spell once more.

  President Bush knew what he was doing that night, but I’m not sure he understood how much it meant to me. I had started reading the papers with my dad when I was in third grade, when the White House seemed so far away. And yet there we were, dressed in formal attire at an intimate evening in the State Dining Room as guests of the President and First Lady of the United States. That night President Bush gave me back my relationship with my dad, an invaluable gift for which I am very grateful.

  Feeling Every Blow

  In the fall of 2008, the nation was gearing up for a Presidential election, but at the White House, we were trying to manage a major financial crisis while solidifying the gains made in Iraq because of the surge. We followed the election closely, of course, but President Bush wasn’t on the ballot so the main media attention was appropriately focused on the candidates, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain.

  For any President who has served two terms, the next election means becoming the target for all things old and washed up and wrong with Washington. This was especially true for President Bush. In 2008, America wanted something new and different, so everyone was distancing themselves from him. After a consequential and often tumultuous two terms, his approval numbers were very low and he was the easiest person to attack.

  I still cringe at some of the things that were said about him during that campaign. We had been instructed to ignore the attacks and not get in the middle of any political fights. President Bush knew that McCain had to throw some punches his way if he had a hope of winning the election. He shrugged them off while I felt every blow.

  One day I couldn’t take it anymore and I pushed back against a ridiculous charge that Hillary Clinton made about President Bush during a campaign stop in her failed bid to win the Democratic nomination. It was something along the lines of how the President didn’t care about the elderly and wanted them to live in poverty eating cat food (a classic Democratic attack against Republicans). It might have been something I’d have ignored on most days, but I must have had vinegar for breakfast. When I was asked during the briefing about Senator Clinton’s swipe at President Bush, I launched a counterattack using facts and figures that I had memorized. The press wasn’t expecting that kind of response from me, and it was a slow news day, so it made some news.

  Within about two hours, the Clinton campaign was using my words as part of an e-mail fund-raising appeal against McCain, and the press was leading with headlines about Bush getting defensive during the campaign. The press loves a fight; it helps ratings and sells papers.

  I knew that I’d gone too far. And sure enough that afternoon, the President called me.

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’s better for McCain if we don’t take the bait. I know you’re trying to protect me, but trust me, I’ll be fine,” he said.

  It took me a few years to realize he was right about that, but I sometimes still wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to have fought back more fiercely against all the misperceptions. I guess history will have to decide that—I can’t go back and change anything that happened.

  Yet there’s one thing that sticks with me—and that was the night of the GOP Convention in September 2008 when President Bush was scheduled to give a speech to the crowd in Minnesota. However, we never left Washington; Mother Nature decided that was a fine time to send Hurricane Gustav to the shores of the United States. And after Hurricane Katrina, concern about hurricanes was higher than ever.

  While the weather wasn’t good, we could have flown to Minneapolis for the speech. We decided to leave it up to the McCain-Palin campaign on whether President Bush should make the trip. After a while, we sensed that the campaign was stalling to make a decision until it was too late for us to leave in time. Deep down I believe they must have thought it would be better for them if President Bush didn’t come to the convention.

  So instead of addressing the GOP that night, the President gave a short statement on hurricane preparedness from the Cross Hall of the East Wing. At the end of it, the President noticed the monitor showing the live shot of the convention floor.

  He quietly asked, “Do you think they know they’re insulting me?”

  I waited a beat, looking at the screen with him.

  “Yes, sir. I believe they do.”

  We met eyes and I remember feeling angry on his behalf and yet so close to him that I gave up caring about the campaign at all anymore. We just focused on what we needed to do at the White House and stayed out of the campaign’s way.

  I learned from President Bush when to let things slide. One time I asked him why we always had to turn the other cheek when our opponents did not. He joked, “It’s our burden to bear.” But it’s not such a heavy load when you think of it like he did.

  While these are some of my favorite stories about how President Bush gave me the best career opportunity of my life, even more important, he inspired me constantly to try to improve myself. Around him, I was more positive, attentive, and gracious. He lives by a code—duty and honor to his country and commitment to and unconditional love for his family. You won’t read it in the media, but that’s who he was. And I tried—and try—to be more like him whenever I can.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Five

  A Big Shrimp

  The day we celebrated the launch of The Five, Bob Beckel choked on a shrimp and almost died. If Eric Bolling hadn’t been there to save his life, our next event would have been Bob’s funeral. It was that ser
ious.

  Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, had invited us to lunch at Del Frisco’s, a popular and upscale steakhouse near the studio. All of the co-hosts and the top executives and producers were there. Bob sat next to Roger at the head of the table, and Eric was across from him. The rest of us filled in the seats, and I remember that all the men were wearing ties—except for Greg Gutfeld. Always the individualist, he wore a magenta wool sweater with a little alien creature on the front. Something of a self-portrait.

  Roger had been kicking around the idea of an ensemble cast for a while. He wanted a group of people with different backgrounds who could have an hour-long discussion about the news of the day, much like families would have over dinner. Roger got his chance to give it a try when Glenn Beck left the network and opened up the 5 p.m. hour. Beck’s show was a rare success in that time slot. Most programs didn’t last too long in that hour, when families aren’t quite home from work yet and, if they are, they’ve traditionally liked to watch their local news programming. To give The Five some breathing room, Roger made it a temporary show, to run from July to Labor Day. (Describing it as temporary kept the media critics at bay.) Expectations were low, and Roger threw us into the deep end.

  We didn’t sink. The Five surprised everyone, including us. We had an instant following and got good ratings, holding on to most of the audience that had been devoted to Beck and adding new viewers, many of them younger people. We flew by the seat of our pants, but that was part of the appeal. We also laughed more than any other show on cable news. People tuned in because they wanted to see just what we were going to say next.