Dana Perino Biography

Dana Marie Perino (born May 9, 1972) is an American political commentator and author who served as the 26th White House Press Secretary, serving under President George W. Bush from September 14, 2007 to January 20, 2009. She was the second female White House Press Secretary, after Dee Dee Myers, who served during the Clinton Administration. She is currently a political commentator for Fox News, while also serving as a co-host of the network's talk show The Five, and is a book publishing executive at Random House.

Early life and career

Born in Evanston, Wyoming, she is the daughter of Janice "Jan" and Leo Perino, and grew up in Colorado in the Denver area. Two of her paternal great-grandparents were Italian immigrants. She attended Ponderosa High School in Parker, a suburb southeast of Denver. Perino graduated from Colorado State University-Pueblo in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in mass communications and minors in both political science and Spanish. In college, she was on the forensics team, worked at KTSC-TV, the campus-based Rocky Mountain PBS affiliate, and also worked at KCCY-FM on the 2 to 6 a.m. shift. Perino went on to obtain a master's degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS). During her time at UIS, she also worked for WCIA, a CBS affiliate, as a daily reporter covering the Illinois Capitol.

Perino next worked in Washington, D.C. for Congressman Scott McInnis (R-CO) as a staff assistant before serving nearly four years as the press secretary for Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO), who then chaired the House Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

After Schaefer announced his retirement in 1998, Perino and husband Peter McMahon moved to Great Britain.

In November 2001, Perino returned to Washington, D.C., and secured a position as a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, at which she served for two years.

Perino then joined the White House staff as the associate director of communications for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), where she provided strategic advice on message development, media relations and public outreach. The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), claimed in its findings on climate change censorship, that the CEQ exerted undue control of media relations in governmental scientific agencies during her tenure.

Press Secretary

Perino served as Deputy Press Secretary from 2005 to 2007. She was hired by Scott McClellan. In the role, Perino communicated many times a day with President Bush's director of communications, his press secretary and his director of media affairs, 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.

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

On August 31, 2007, 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 served as White House Press Secretary from September 14, 2007, until the end of the Bush Administration in January 2009.

On December 14, 2008, a TV journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, threw two shoes at Bush during a Baghdad press conference. Bush successfully dodged both, but Perino's eye was injured by a microphone stand during the commotion surrounding al-Zeidi's arrest.

Post-Bush administration career

Since leaving the White House, Perino became a political commentator on Fox News. She is a regular co-host on the talk show, The Five. In November 2009, she was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency overseeing government-sponsored international broadcasting, and was confirmed by the Senate on June 30, 2010. In 2010, she started teaching a class in political communications part-time at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management. In March 2011 the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., announced that Perino had joined its books imprint Crown Forum as Editorial Director but she has since left this position.

On September 18, 2016, Perino's podcast Perino & Stirewalt: I'll Tell You What premiered as a weekly limited series on the Fox News Channel, which ran until the elections.

Personal life

Perino met her future husband, Peter McMahon, in 1996. McMahon, born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, is a businessman involved in the international marketing and sales of medical products. They were married in 1998.

In May 2012 Perino appeared on Jeopardy! during its "Power Players" week, facing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and CNBC's David Faber.

Bibliography

• 2016, April: And the Good News Is...: Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side ISBN 1455584916
• 2016, October: Let Me Tell You about Jasper...: How My Best Friend Became America's Dog ISBN 1455567108