Dana Perino

Dana Perino
Perino in a daily press briefing, September 17, 2007
27 White House Press Secretary
Incumbent
Assumed office September 14, 2007
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Tony Snow
Personal details
Born	(1972-05-09) May 9, 1972 Evanston, WY
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Peter McMahon
Children	None
Alma mater	Colorado State University-Pueblo
Profession	White House Press Secretary
Website	White House Press Briefings

Dana Marie Perino (born May 9 1972) is the current White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush, having taken over the position on September 14, 2007. From March 27 to April 30 2007 she was the Acting White House Press Secretary while her predecessor Tony Snow underwent treatment for a recurrence of colon cancer. On August 31, 2007, President Bush announced that Snow would be resigning his post and that Perino would become his replacement. She is the second woman to serve as White House Press Secretary; Dee Dee Myers was the first, during the Clinton Administration.

Early life and career

Perino was born in Evanston, Wyoming, and grew up in Denver, Colorado. She attended Ponderosa High School in Parker, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. Perino graduated from the University of Southern Colorado (now known as Colorado State University-Pueblo) in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in mass communications and minors in both political science and Spanish. While attending the university, Perino was active on the debate team and with KTSC-TV, the campus-based Rocky Mountain PBS affiliate where she served as host of Capitol Journal, a weekly summary of Colorado politics, and producer of Standoff, a weekly public affairs program. From there, Perino attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS). Perino obtained her masters at UIS in Public Affairs Reporting while also working as a daily reporter covering the Illinois Capitol for WCIA-TV, a CBS affiliate.

Perino then went on to work in Washington, D.C., for Representative Scott McInnis (R, retired) of Colorado as a staff assistant before serving nearly four years as the press secretary for Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO-Retired), who then chaired a House Commerce subcommittee on Energy and Power.

After Representative Schaefer announced his retirement, Perino moved to the United Kingdom to marry businessman Peter McMahon. After a year in the UK, Perino and McMahon moved back to the United States and resided in San Diego, California, for three years. During that time, Perino worked in the field of high-tech public affairs.

In November 2001, Perino returned to Washington, D.C. to serve as a spokesperson for the Department of Justice. Several months later, she was asked to join the White House where she served as the Director of Communications for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). By statute, the CEQ oversees the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act, where all federal agencies must complete environmental assessments on their activities before they take action.

Press Secretary

Dana Perino, George W. Bush and Tony Snow.

On March 31, 2006, President George W. Bush named Perino as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary. In the role, Perino communicated many times a day with the President's director of communications, his press secretary and his director of media affairs, handling all environment-related media calls for the White House, as well as serving as the spokesperson for the White House on environmental issues. In addition, she served as the coordinator for all agencies on environment, energy and natural resource issues, as well as reviewing and approving the agencies' major announcements, while keeping the other White House offices apprised on the Council of Environmental Quality's actions. The House Oversight comitee has released a report sumarizing a collected 27,000 pages of documentation from the CEQ regarding white house involvement in censoring science related to climate change the house held two investigative hearings, and deposed or interviewed key officials. Much of the information made available to the Committee has never been publicly disclosed. The report presents the findings of the Committee’s investigation. The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming. http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1653

From March 27 to April 30, 2007 she was the Acting White House Press Secretary while Tony Snow underwent treatment for cancer.

On August 31, 2007, President Bush announced that Snow would be resigning his post for health reasons and that Perino would become his replacement. Perino was accordingly promoted to the rank of Assistant to the President, and has served as White House Press Secretary since September 14, 2007.

Personal life

In 1997, Perino met her English husband Peter McMahon on a flight from Denver. Eleven months later they were married. Seven months after their first date she moved to Lytham St Annes, Lancashire England and lived in a flat overlooking the Irish Sea for a year. McMahon, whom Bush calls "The Englishman", is a sales and marketing director for medical products. McMahon, who is 18 years older, has two adult children from one of his two previous marriages, making Perino a step-grandmother of twins.

In 2007, Perino appeared on the radio quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! known for, in an amusing fashion, embarrassing the guests. Perino told a self-deprecating, humorous anecdote about how she had to ask her husband about the Cuban Missile Crisis after it came up in a press briefing. News reports treated her comments as a moment of levity, noting that she was born ten years after the event.