[torchthemummy]

I am being completely sincere when I say that McClellan had one personal aptitude to being the Press Secretary: a dry, boring style that never made a good soundbite/clip for the MSM. Ari Fleisher and Tony Snow had real presence and clear intelligence which made them more apt to be used in soundbites/clips with the downside being that any "mistake" they made would come across as more theatrical than McClellan.

In the end of course McClellan, like any Press Secretary, is going to be utilized in soundbites/clips no matter what. I just believe the only effective style he had was to sound like a funeral director and thus lull some of the press into a gentle nap.

[Dilbert56]

The next President should:

• Accept that the media are not a conduit of information that needs to be managed. They are in the entertainment business, chasing ratings. As long as they pick and choose what gets covered there will be no balance.
• Do away with the press conference as an institution. No more having "reporters" gin up contorted assertions that happen to have a question mark at the end. No more 5-second sound bites dominating the coverage.
• If the perfumed princes have a question, they can e-mail the President's press secretary.
• Carve out an advertising budget. If the President's enemies can throw millions of dollars into propaganda, the President needs his own way to counter attack, w/o relying on the media.