Scooter's Insight

Scott McClellan is no Ari. There will never be another Ari. Ari was the man. But McClellan here makes a comment with such huge insight.




"I'm lucky when I go into a briefing, I'm gonna speak for forty or forty-five minutes, but I'm lucky to get seven seconds on the news that night."

Imagine if you had to prep (to varying degrees) to present 45 minutes of intellect and spin (to varying degrees) only to have but 7 seconds of it paid attention to. I think I get more than that when I'm in a classroom, but perhaps not by much.

Do the math: let's ignore the prep-work, because obviously the press secretary works for more than 45 minutes a day, but if you work an 8 hour day, proportionally, you are only listened to for 74 seconds a day... my shit stinks for more than 74 seconds -- and that's after I flush. It takes me longer than that to order a Medium-spicy Chicken Korma with extra rice for lunch. And I don't even see people for 8 hours a day.

Assuming you have a two-week vacation (for those of you suckers whacking off 9-5), you're listened to [be happy about this] for 62 minutes a year. That's right, more than one hour a year people pay attention to what you have to say. But the bigger question is now, what is it that we remember?

Is it your mediocre lecture on the failings of Heider and Festinger? You give this lecture twice a year, let's hope some of it sticks.

Is it your fantastic presentation of your own research? You did, after all, jump through all their hoops, work on it for hundreds of hours, and put your balls on the line for 1-and-a-half credits.

Is it your repeated requests for help? Like "SOS plz snd hlp. 911!!!" Nah, pretty sure my e-mail wasn't working that day.

No, it's probably the horrible shit you say to someone to shut them up when you're in a bad mood and all you want to do is get your work done and go home and tell the whole world you don't want to listen to it for 7 seconds today. So you do just that: you fail to bite your tongue at the worst possible time, you tell the wrong person to fuck off (even though EVERYONE knows he deserved it), and you spend the rest of your life wishing you had more message discipline.