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The buffer turned warrior Sunday, Jun 1, 2008 By David J. Sanders It could have been one of the Oval Office's more embarrassing moments. Yours truly was invited to participate in a 45-minute round-robin interview with President Bush, who, at the time, was trying to sell Congress on his plan to revamp Social Security. The six of us who gathered in the West Wing were escorted into the Oval Office where we were warmly greeted by the President, who doubled as a tour guide. My mind was on the interview. I wanted to be able see everyone, so I scoped out a corner couch seat that would give me the perfect angle. We took our seats and prepared to get down to business. Bush was smooth and deliberate with his words. He noticed his guests' uneasiness and alleviated our apprehension by cracking a few jokes. Realizing that I need not be so uptight, I did what anyone else would do, I tried to get comfortable. So, pulling back my shoulders while taking a deep breath, I leaned forward and arched my back. Then I exhaled and moved backward into what I thought would be a comfortable spot ? that corner where the arm of the couch meets the back. I glanced over my shoulder as I moved only to discover that unlike every other couch in the world, those in the Oval Office did not have arms. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. My heart stopped (figuratively, of course) and an icy cold sweat broke through my pores. A deafening roar filled my head and my body stiffened, then jerked forward in a last-ditch attempt to abort the trajectory that would have propelled me off the couch's edge. After regaining my composure, I looked up, eyes wide, to see if anyone had noticed the near catastrophe. All clear; they were focused on Bush. Peering over my shoulder again, I noticed a pale and nervously smiling Scott McClellan, who, seated less than two feet behind me, had recognized that an enormous disaster had been avoided. I flashed a sheepish grin. We both realized that had I not applied the brakes, he would have been the buffer between me and the rug. "Buffer" was a familiar role for McClellan. As White House press secretary, he served as the public barrier between the president and the news media, especially during unpleasant times. Unlike the more charismatic types who filled that position, McClellan didn't stand out in a crowd, much less in the White House briefing room. But, with a new tell-all book, which among many other newsworthy nuggets claims that his former boss relied on "innuendo" and "implication" during in the run-up to the Iraq War, he is getting plenty of attention now. He claims he wrote the book for the same reason he followed Bush to the White House in 2000: He hopes to fix the culture where Democrats and Republicans engage in a continuous battle to gain an advantage over each other in the day-to-day narrative. According to McClellan, instead of fixing Washington as he pledged to do, Bush has made it worse. McClellan might as well look in the mirror. This new search for significance has rendered this one-time-buffer-turned-presidential critic a willing warrior in the very battle he now criticizes others for waging. ------- David Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and is a host of the Arkansas Education Television Network's "Unconventional Wisdom." His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com. |
