White House press secretary Jay Carney's resignation capped a tenure that saw the media grow increasingly restless toward President Barack Obama amid of a bevy of scandals, including the controversy that led to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki's departure on Friday, experts told Newsmax.
"I wish him well," Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary for President George W. Bush for nearly two and a half years, said in an interview. "He served a long time in a very hard job. Regardless of politics or ideology, or whatever anyone thinks of him or his boss, it's a hard job and a wonderful job."
Democratic analyst and pollster Doug Schoen likened Carney's performance to that of the inept sergeant of the television sitcom "Hogan's Heroes." "Press secretaries have a natural life of only about one term, so I am frankly surprised he has stayed as long as he has," he said in a statement. "That being said, he played the 'Sergeant Schultz' role well. "He spouted the party line, avoided difficult questions, and maintained he knew very little about most subjects beyond what he had already said.
"A job well done, from the president's point of view."
And Tobe Berkovitz, an associate professor of advertising at Boston University, was even more caustic.
"Despite the fact that the press knows that he lied to them repeatedly, that he was part of the cover-up of a whole bunch of administration scandals, he will still get a job for probably several million dollars a year," he told Newsmax in an interview. "The irony would be if he goes into a healthcare provider."
