White House Press Secretary
Although Fleischer served as communications director for Elizabeth Dole during her presidential run in the 2000 election campaign, he joined George W. Bush's presidential campaign after Mrs. Dole dropped out of the race. When Mr. Bush became the President in 2001, he tapped Fleischer to become the first press secretary of his administration.
Fleischer is credited with having been the first to introduce the phrase "homicide bombing" to describe what has also been called suicide bombing, in April 2002, to emphasize the terrorist connotations of the tactic:
| “ | The president…convened a meeting of the National Security Council, at which point, in the middle of the meeting, the president was informed about this morning's homicide bombing in Jerusalem.…The Saudi telethon, as they have told it to us, is to provide assistance to the Palestinian people, and that isn't – no money is going to go to provide the homicide bombers with any assistance from the Saudi government.
|
” |
On May 19, 2003, he announced that he would resign during the summer, citing a desire to spend more time with his wife and to work in the private sector. He was replaced by deputy press secretary Scott McClellan on July 15, 2003.
Read more about this topic: Ari Fleischer
Famous quotes containing the words white, house, press and/or secretary:
“(The black stream, catching on a sunken rock,
Flung backward on itself in one white wave,
And the white water rode the black forever.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”
—Jules Henri Poincare (1854–1912)
“Oh! snatch’d away in beauty’s bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves, the earliest of the year;”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)