Low-Key Player

The New White House Press Secretary Is Primed and Ready for Caution

Scott McClellan can seem effortlessly funny, as when the new presidential press secretary told reporters: "I look forward to working with the White House press corps -- at least most of you, anyway."

What the assembled journalists didn't know was that McClellan had tried out the line on several White House aides beforehand, asking if they thought it went too far.

The 35-year-old Texan is soft-spoken, self-deprecating and so cautious that he makes the man he's replacing, Ari Fleischer, sound like a gangsta rapper. And there may never have been a White House spokesman in the television age who recoiled so visibly from the spotlight.

McClellan may be low-key, says White House political czar Karl Rove, but "low-key means unflappable."

Sitting in Fleischer's high-ceilinged office days before taking over next Tuesday, McClellan, Fleischer's longtime deputy, dutifully answers questions in concise fashion, looking as though he'd rather be walking on hot coals. And he deftly parries efforts to get him to express an opinion on just about anything.

Is the press unfair to President Bush? "I don't think I should put myself in the position of being a media critic or political pundit," he says. "If I have a problem with a story, if I see something wrong or inaccurate, I address that directly with the reporter." And if that doesn't work, "you go to the next level. I do not like the idea of doing that."

What about complaints that this is an overly secretive White House? "In a 24/7 news cycle, there's always going to be some tension and frustration with the press corps. I recognize that. Obviously this is a president that likes to make big announcements on his time frame. That discipline has worked well for us."

But don't journalists have a point that obtaining basic information is often like pulling teeth? "I understand that in a 24/7 news cycle, reporters always want to get ahead of us. That doesn't always lead to accurate stories."

Zzzzz.

This reticence, apparently, is a lifelong trait. "He'd never tell you if he split his head open and had to have a stitch job," says his mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Texas politician as bombastic as her son is restrained. "You'd have to see the blood."

No wonder Bush likes the guy.

Scott McClellan does some of his best work away from the cameras.