Trent Duffy was the deputy White House press secretary under Scott McClellan. Everyone assumed he would take over when McClellan left and that the White House press operations would improve dramatically, or at least as much as they could under an overly cautious Dan Bartlett.
But McClellan never resigned, so Duffy moved on. And now, after his firing, McClellan tells us that he was "disillusioned" well before he was forced from his job. Duffy thinks that's too convenient. He knows different because he was talking to McClellan regularly about his job satisfaction. He's written about these interactions, and many others, in an oped for the Washington Post. If you believe Duffy, McClellan lied and lied repeatedly.
You hired me as your deputy in October 2003 and said more than once that the typical tenure of a White House press secretary before burnout was about two years. After two years went by, we were about halfway into what you now call your period of disillusionment.
As Christmas approached, your mood was as festive as the White House eggnog. Seeing your delight, I suspected you might be having second thoughts about serving only two years or so. So I asked you. You said you weren't going anywhere, you loved the job, you were feeling good. Now, you say you were actually suffering through a gut-wrenching ordeal and were looking for the exits.
When the first "teaser" excerpts of your book hit the press in December, my phone lighted up with calls from reporters. Before responding, I called you; you said the publisher had taken liberties, you didn't mean to attack the president and to point reporters to your 2006 interview with Larry King as your genuine take on things. You told me that your book was still about the poisonous partisan atmosphere in Washington and didn't breathe a hint about Iraq or Hurricane Katrina. This was long after you were outside the White House bubble, amigo.
You also assured me, when we've talked the past two years, that you wanted your deputies to review the book and share our thoughts. Thinking you actually meant what you said, I reached out to you two months ago to take you up on your offer. Radio silence. Why didn't you keep your promise to me and the other professionals who gave years of their lives working for you?
The press was easy on us? How many times did you race up the ramp from the briefing room to your office after a raucous media cross-examination to complain how the press was unfair, naive, too tough and way too "liberal." Would any in the White House press corps agree they were softies?
All that aside, the revelations that you are "intrigued by Senator Obama's message" and that you don't know if you are a Republican anymore make me wonder if you ever had any convictions. If you were just drinking the Kool-Aid at the White House, have you now switched flavors with your newfound friends?
Perhaps you have had an epiphany. Maybe it is better to appease terrorists and let them fight us here instead of taking them on overseas. Maybe we should return our public education system to factories of mediocrity run by teachers unions instead of demanding and delivering educational excellence for our children. Maybe we should let the government ration health care and get between us and our doctors. And maybe we should raise taxes, punish individual enterprise and destroy the incentive for hard work to pay for more government programs.
Think about it. You may not be able to now, since you have conceded your inability to think clearly and independently inside a bubble atmosphere, be it at the White House or while on a media-frenzy book tour.
But do it anyway. On your own, without a publisher around. And let me know what you figure out.
I believe Duffy.
