WASHINGTON (AP) – Dana Perino, President George W. Bush’s spokeswoman at the end of his presidency, is out with a book that is part memoir, part career advice. Perino is the only Republican woman ever to serve as White House press secretary and is now a co-cost of “The Five” on Fox News Channel.
Five tidbits from “And the Good News Is …: Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side,” which goes on sale Tuesday:
LIFTING VEIL ON WALTER REED
Perino offers a behind-the-scenes look into some of a president’s toughest moments – the emotional private meetings with critically wounded troops at Walter Reed military hospital. She writes that she worried that families sitting in bedside vigils would be angry with Bush for sending their loved ones to war, but usually they welcomed and thanked him. In her first visit, a Marine opened his eyes for the first time since being injured by a roadside bomb when the president awarded him the Purple Heart, leaving Bush and everyone else in the room in tears. The Marine died a few days later. She also writes of a mother who did not give Bush a warm welcome, but instead questioned why it was her child and not his who lay in the hospital bed. “That mama sure was mad at me,” she quotes Bush as saying as they headed back to the White House, a tear running down his cheek. “And I don’t blame her a bit.”
A DEMOCRATIC FRIEND IN WASHINGTON