Live from the White House! (But really Lisner Auditorium)

From l-r, Mike McCurry (Clinton 94-98), Dana Perino (Bush 07-09), Frank Sesno (moderator), Ari
Fleischer (Bush 01-03), Dee Dee Myers (Clinton 93-94)

One of the great things about living in DC and being a grad student at GW is the amazing opportunities to, according to our slogan, "have a front seat in the theatre of history." A few weeks after I moved to DC, I got the chance to attend an event called the Five Secretaries, which was basically a round table discussion with five recent Secretaries of State. It was one of the best things I've ever done in my life.



Dee Dee Myers--Why, yes, I do have a favorite press secretary. #NerdAlert

Tonight's event, "Live from the White House: Making and Shaping the News," was a similar event that was supposed to be five presidential press secretaries. (Joe Lockhard, Clinton 98-2000, is recovering from surgery and couldn't make the event.) So far, the secretaries theme has worked out pretty good for GW. I'm not sure if I'll attend the day they have the Five Secretaries of Argiculture, but the press secretaries provided an interesting prospective on world events throughout the combined sixteen years of the Clinton and Bush administrations, as well as how social media has changed the job. One statistic from tonight: When Myers became press secretary in January 93, there were 50 web sites. When she left the job in December of 94, there were closer to 5 billion. That sounds crazy to me, but I didn't make it up.



As you can see, I struggled with my camera little bit. I try to adjust the settings without disturbing those around me, but still, some of the photos turned out bad. And by bad, I sometimes mean blurry, like the shot of Dana Perino above, and sometimes I mean bad as in, well, see for yourself.


Hmm.... What do you think she's looking at? Maybe Dana Perino's legs? Whatever it is, Fleischer is still oblivious.

And there we go.

Now, to return to a dignified manner more befitting the occasion, here's a charming picture of Dee Dee Myers shaking hands with Frank Sesno, former CNN White House correspondant, later the CNN Washington Bureau Chief, and now the Director of GW's School of Media and Public Affairs, as Ari Fleischer looks on.