Dana Perino, press secretary to President George W. Bush.
» Born May 9, 1972, in Evanston, Wyo., to Jan and Leo Perino, who moved the family to Denver when Dana was 2.
» Learned about the power of rhetoric on the debate team at Ponderosa High School in suburban Denver, then graduated from the University of Southern Colorado in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and minors in political science and Spanish.
» Earned a master’s degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois in Springfield, where she also covered the Illinois Capitol for the local CBS News affiliate.
» Came to Washington in 1995 as staff assistant to former Republican Rep. Scott McInnis of Colorado, later becoming press secretary for former Rep. Dan Schaefer, also of Colorado.
» Met husband-to-be Peter McMahon, a British businessman, on an airplane in 1997. Moved to England and later resettled in San Diego, where she did public relations in the high-tech industry.
» Returned to Washington two months after the September 2001 terrorist attacks with a notion to join the Bush administration. Was hired as a press aide in the Justice Department and later joined the White House Council on Environmental Quality as spokeswoman.
» Bragged that her beloved Hungarian vizsla, Henry, had been trained to retrieve flip-flops on the command “John Kerry.”
» Hired by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan in 2005 as deputy press secretary; began filling in regularly at the podium for McClellan’s successor, Tony Snow, in early 2007.
» Named White House press secretary by President Bush in August 2007, when Snow’s cancer diagnosis forced him to resign. She said, “He leaves very big shoes to fill, and I wear only a size 6.”
» Listed in 2006 among Esquire magazine’s “Women We’re Ashamed to Love” in a piece that noted, “The executive branch seems so much more capable in her dulcet voice. Lie to us, Dana. Lie to us.”
