The press secretary who starts to narrow down or close the president's options because he answers delicate negotiating questions no longer serves the president.
I still remember March 31, 1981, when a deeply disturbed John Hinckley Jr. took aim at President Ronald Reagan and fired shots that hospitalized the Commander-in-Chief and two others, and left his Press Secretary James Brady paralyzed for life.
As a press secretary and on 'The Five,' I've learned that I have a choice in how I answer a question. There's combative or productive - I get to take my pick.
There's no job that will humble you like the White House press secretary job.
People really think that the only way I got to be press secretary is because I somehow had a personal family connection to the Bushes or the Cheneys, and that wasn't true.
When I joined Bill Clinton's start-up presidential campaign in 1991, I was confident that women would play an ever more important role, but I never gave a minute's thought to what would happen if we won. When we did - and I became the first woman to serve as White House press secretary - it changed my life. But it didn't change the world.
When I became White House press secretary, there were other limitations that were thrust upon me. Bill Clinton was under pressure to appoint women to visible positions. I was 31, I'd never worked in Washington. Was I ready for this large and visible job? Still he wanted the credit. So he gave me the job but diminished the job.
During my years as a press secretary, I developed a powerful internal filter, which worked to strip all things 'off message' from my thoughts before they came out of my mouth. It didn't always work, of course, and I said more than a few things I regretted.
Being a press secretary is like learning to type: You're hunting and pecking for a while and then you find yourself doing the touch system and don't realize it. You're speaking for the president without ever having to go to him.
The Democrats and the mainstream media shouldn't be so quick to mock White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders for suggesting that President Trump was chosen by God to lead this country.
