Spokespersons Quotes

The George W. Bush administration became notorious for its deception of Congress, the Press and the public. In particular, the administration would develop elaborate scenarios of conditions in the world and develop military and foreign policy responses to them. Soon, it became clear that the scenario upon which the policy and action had been based, was inaccurate—a fantasy to begin with. There has been much debate whether the scenarios were deliberate lies to drum up political support for the administration or just errors of judgment based on bad intelligence. Snow, had to go out and maintain the scenarios even after it became clear that they had been fantasies.

President Eisenhower, who had a very high degree of trust—domestically and internationally—was persuaded to lie to the country and the world about U-2 Spy Plane Program. As soon as the nation and the world, had accepted Eisenhowers word for the program, the Russians not only displayed a U-2 that they had shot down over Soviet territory, but trotted out the pilot who they had captured. Generally, American Presidents since have avoided lies until LBJ lied about the Gulf of Tonkin, Ronald Reagan lied about Irangate, Bill Clinton lied about his sex life, and George W. Bush lied about the reason for invading Iran. All these lies have turned out badly for the President and the nation.

Reagan, Ford, Bush, Clinton

At the beginning of the Job Corps, a number of academics and urban political figures were very critical of taking young men from the cities and brining them to rural centers in National Parks and Forests for basic education and work training. It was decided that instead of Sargent Shriver the Head of the Anti Poverty Program or Otis Singletary, the Jobe Corps Director, Eigen would give a major presentation at an academic conference ammouncing the scale and scope of the planned program. If the objection was too great, Singletary and Shriver could say that Eigen was just proposing his ideas that were under consideration but they had not reached a decision and Eigen did not prepresent the views of the administration. Fortunately he handled the critics well and was persuasive enough to oftain the support of many of the Conference attendees, and the Newspaper accounts were very favorible, so what Eigen said was the official policy and design of the Job Corps program which, with Head Start, were the only two programs for the War on Poverty that still opperated 60 years thereafter. Eigen told this story in a Primer he wrote for new Federal appointees who most often have little or no understanding of the operations of the Federal Government.

There were rumors that General Flynn, the National Security Advistor, who was one of President Donald Trump's first appointments, had reached out to Russian Officals before Trump had taken office. It was technically illegal for private citizens to conduct foreign policy. Trump was adamant that General Flynn out to have made contact with the Russians. Conway, Trumps Campaign Manager, and Conselor after he assumed office, went on National Television to put to rest any rumors that Flynn would be fired. A few hours after her statement, Trump changed his mind and fired General Flynn. This quotation illustrates the difficulty that spokespersons for high level officials have in maintaining their own credibility. Often, people whe are in positions like that are referred to as "spearcatchers".