Briefing Quotes

The function of a briefing paper is to prevent the ambassador from saying something dreadfully indiscreet. I sometimes think its true object is to prevent the ambassador from saying anything at all. (Kingman Brewster, Jr.)

The press briefing today I believe has lost much of its usefulness.

Marlin Fitzwater

As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room.

Scott McClellan

We always get up about 5:30, and George gets up and goes in and gets the coffee and brings it to me, and that's been our ritual since we got married. And we read the newspapers in bed and drink coffee for about an hour probably, read our briefing papers.

Laura Welch Bush

Let's hear it for the essential daily briefing, however hollow and empty it might be. We'll do it.

Donald Rumsfeld

We flew to Crawford that night and were up at dawn the next morning for what Laura had termed "the afterlife." I was struck by the calm. There was no CIA briefing to attend and no blue sheet from the Situation Room. I felt like I had gone from a hundred miles an hour to about ten. I had to force myself to relax. I would read the news and instinctively think about how we would have to respond. Then I remembered that decision was on someone else's desk.

George W. Bush

As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before Nine-Eleven. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. And I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.

George W. Bush

At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the President deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world? And I have a follow-up... My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis? ...

Helen Thomas

Condoleezza Rice: But I don't remember the al‐Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about. Richard Ben-Veniste: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB [Presidential Daily Briefing] warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB? Condoleezza Rice: I believe the title was, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.

Condoleezza Rice

This is the research we did online for the 9/11 attacks... we gave this briefing internally at the CIA, they said, 'how'd you know all this stuff?' because at the same time one of the emails had the date... 9/11 as the attack date that was given.

William Binney

Someday we'll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation. (Frank Rich)

Well my briefing was that Honduras was a small and vulnerable country just back on the path towards democracy it was about to have just before I arrived, the first elections for a civilian president in more than 9 years.

John Negroponte

I've never seen a candidate - I've never seen a human being - who, with the most limited briefing, can understand the dimensions, the parameters, the nuances of everything of any kind of a policy or political problem.

James Carville

No, I can tell you one of the first things that happens to a home secretary when they arrive in the job is that they are given a briefing about the security matters that they will be dealing with and I deal with security matters on a daily basis.

Theresa May

Everybody caught one another's eye with a 'Spot the loon' look when [Tony] Benn was talking. The show was probably true to life, since each minister had a vested interest in briefing the journalist chosen to play him. It's a sweet technique for getting at the truth, so I imagine someone will put a stop to it soon enough.

Clive James

George W. Bush attended the intelligence briefing every day. Obama has not even attended half of them. He sends surrogates. That to me is significant.

Rush Limbaugh

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.

Alan Bennett

Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves - all plot and no characters, or made-up characters - Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.

Wilfrid Sheed