Beam me up Scotty


The president’s right-hand man at the president’s left.

I watched a little of today’s White House press briefing on C-Span. Man, I don’t see how Scott McClellan does it. He stands up there and delivers the company line every day, hardly missing a beat. He reminds me of … Mr. Roboto.

“I’ve got a secret I’ve been hiding under my skin
My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain I.B.M.
So if you see me acting strangely, don’t be surprised
I’m just a man who needed someone, and somewhere to hide”

But you know and I know that what you see on TV isn’t always real. I mean, yes, Scott McClellan is real but whether he is really the same Scotty you see at press briefings …

“I’m not a robot without emotions-I’m not what you see
I’ve come to help you with your problems, so we can be free
I’m not a hero, I’m not a savior, forget what you know
I’m just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control”

Actually, I spoke to Scott McClellan twice in my life that I can recall. Both times were before he was press secretary. One time was after a presidential press availability and Scott was the official Bush spokesmodel for the trip. I think I asked him a question but I really can’t recall because I had just returned to work after recovering from surgery and barely knew I was on the planet.

The other time I spoke to Scott was when I called him in his White House office. I was trying to get a quote for something or other from the White House. I called a sister paper’s reporter who had been covering the first Bush campaign and was still hanging around the White House. This reporter, whom I will not name, gave me Scott’s phone number at the White House. I called Scott and told him what I wanted and he said in his very annoyed Scotty voice: “Who gave you this number?” I told him. I don’t know if the reporter was just trying to yank Scotty’s chain by giving his phone number out to some reporter from the hinterlands or whether the guy just thought he was still hanging out with the governor’s people. To his credit, Scotty did put me in touch with someone who gave me a quote. That was probably one of maybe two or three times I had someone return my calls from the president’s place out of the maybe 20 times I tried.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For doing the jobs that nobody wants to
And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For helping me escape just when I needed to”

This same reporter who gave me Scotty’s number also co-authored a story with me one time. I was in Crawford and the other reporter was in Washington. The other reporter dug up some information which warranted us both a mention in Dan Froomkin’s “White House Briefing” column on Washington Post online. Is that too pretentious of me? Sorry. I just mentioned that because, unlike Scotty, I may never be in Froomkin’s column again.

“Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo…domo”

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