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After both a historic (see Desiree Rogers, the first African-American social secretary) and shaky start (see Ms. Rogers, whose first state dinner would best be remembered as “Salahi-gate”), the White House made history yet again when it announced Friday that Jeremy Bernard will be the new social secretary. Mr. Bernard will be the first openly gay person to hold that position.

“Jeremy shares our vision for the White House as the people’s house, one that celebrates our history and culture in dynamic and inclusive ways,” President Obama said in an e-mail statement. “We look forward to Jeremy continuing to showcase America’s arts and culture to our nation and the world through the many events at the White House.”

Currently, Mr. Bernard serves as senior adviser to the United States ambassador to France. He previously served as the White House liaison to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Mr. Bernard and Rufus Gifford, his then-partner, were early supporters of Mr. Obama’s candidacy in California. The pair lived in Los Angeles and raised millions of dollars for Mr. Obama when he was an Illinois senator.

When they moved to Washington, they scored a two-bedroom in a green building in the city’s hip Logan Circle neighborhood, and quickly earned a reputation as a power couple.

“I am deeply humbled to join the White House staff as Social Secretary and support President Obama and the First Lady in this role,” Mr. Bernard said in an e-mail statement. “I have long admired the arts and education programs that have become hallmarks of the Obama White House, and I am eager to continue these efforts in the years ahead.”

Mr. Bernard will be the third social secretary in the Obama administration. After Ms. Rogers left, she was replaced by Julianna Smoot, a fund-raising powerhouse and political operative who stepped down in February after just 10 months, to join the president’s re-election operation in Chicago.

Jonathan Capehart, an openly gay man and editorial writer for The Washington Post, first broke news of Mr. Bernard’s hiring in a blog post this afternoon. After disclosing that he and Mr. Bernard are friends, he praised the appointment as “an excellent choice.”

“He will bring a certain warmth and irreverence to the job that will make him a joy for his colleagues to work with,” Mr. Capehart wrote. “His knowledge of the Obamas and his intense attention to detail will ensure that their vision for the people’s house continues seamlessly. And he has a reverence for the presidency and the meaning of the White House that will make him an imaginative steward of their image.”

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House Republicans on Thursday continued their steady march toward approving the largest spending cuts in modern history – a swift, huge slash of more than $60 billion from domestic programs and foreign aid that Republicans said would fulfill their promise to shrink government outlays, but Democrats said would harm the fragile economic recovery.

The White House has already threatened to veto the bill, and Senate Democrats have voiced strong objections to the scale of cuts by the House Republicans, putting the parties on a collision course that officials warned could lead to a shutdown of the federal government early next month.

The stop-gap measure now financing the government expires on March 4, and the speaker of the House, John A. Boehner of Ohio, bluntly warned on Thursday that Republicans would not agree to even a temporary extension unless it reduced spending, which is now generally being held at 2010 levels.

“When we say we’re going to cut spending,” Mr. Boehner intoned at a news conference, “read my lips: ‘we’re going to cut spending.’”

While Mr. Boehner accused Democrats of threatening to shut the government down to avoid making cuts, Democrats accused Republicans of risking a shutdown by refusing to compromise. “It is unproductive to resort to threats of a shutdown without any negotiations,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said in a statement.

After working through Wednesday night and into the predawn hours on Thursday, lawmakers returned to the House floor and clashed fiercely over proposed amendments to the spending measure. A final vote was not expected until after midnight, but with the new Republican majority resolute in executing big cuts, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Republicans now control the House 241 to 193 with one vacancy.

Because the rules of debate required that any restorations in funding be offset with corresponding cuts elsewhere, the total reductions were certain to exceed the roughly $60 billion originally included in the spending measure by the House Appropriations Committee. The bill covers spending for the remainder of the current fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30.

While the final tally remained to be counted, there was no doubt that House Republicans would succeed in approving their bill after the sort of raucous free-wheeling debate that has been a rarity in the House in recent years. Rank-and-file lawmakers put forward hundreds of amendments, and the outcome of some votes went against the wishes of Republican leaders.

Mr. Boehner said the debate underscored his commitment to letting the House work its will. But long before the vote, he was promoting the outcome. “As part of our effort to liberate our economy from the shackles of out-of-control spending,” he said, “the House will soon vote to cut discretionary spending by over $100 billion over the last seven months of this fiscal year.”

He added, “That’s five times larger than any discretionary spending cuts ever considered by the House. We’ve exceeded the commitment that we made in our Pledge to America, and there are more reforms and cuts to come.”

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As the House marched steadily on Friday toward approving the largest spending cuts in modern history, Republicans easily pushed through amendments to deny government financing for Planned Parenthood, to block money for carrying out the big health care overhaul and to bar the Obama administration from regulating certain greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

On the fourth day of free-wheeling debate over the spending measure, political priorities took center stage.

The amendment to deny government funds to Planned Parenthood was put forward by Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana. It was approved by a vote of 240 to 185.

The House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, angrily denounced the vote as a camouflaged effort by Republicans to prevent Americans from engaging in all kinds of family planning, services which she said would actually reduce the number of elective abortions. “Perhaps we have to have a lesson in the birds and the bees around here for them to understand that,” Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference.

There were at least five different amendments to block federal agencies from implementing the health care law or crucial components of the law. Four of them were approved easily and the fifth was defeated on parliamentary grounds.

One amendment, by Representative Denny Rehberg, Republican of Montana, would prohibit “funds from being used to pay any employee, officer, or contractor to implement the provisions of the president’s health care law.” It was approved by 239 to 187. Another by Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, would prohibit “the use of funds in the bill from being used to carry out the provisions of the president’s health care law.” It was approved by 241 to 187. Mr. King also put forward an amendment to bar money in the bill from paying the salary “of any officer or employee of any federal department or agency with respect to carrying out the provisions of the president’s health care law.” That one was approved by 237 to 191.

And an amendment by Representative Jo Ann Emerson, Republican of Missouri, to prohibit funds to implement the mandate that most Americans obtain health insurance and other reporting requirements in the health care law was approved by 246 to 182.

Taking aim at the Democrats’ environmental agenda, Representative Ted Poe, Republican of Texas, proposed an amendment that prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and factories for seven months. It was approved by 249 to 177.

The Republican amendments now become part of a spending package, running through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, that would cut government spending by more than $60 billion. The House is certain to approve the measure given strong Republican support. But the White House has already threatened a veto, and Senate Democrats have made clear they will not go along.

An impasse in the spending debate could lead to a government shutdown early next month. The temporary stop-gap measure now financing the government expires on March 4.

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1:48 p.m. | Updated President Obama will have lunch with the Republican leaders of the House on Wednesday as he continues his outreach to Congress in the wake of his party’s heavy losses in November.

The speaker of the House, John A. Boehner of Ohio, will come to the White House along with Representatives Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority whip.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told reporters that they would discuss the economy and spending.

“Obviously, without a doubt, there will be a heavy discussion of the economy and spending, and I think the president will have a chance to talk through with them many of the things he outlined in the State of the Union,” Mr. Gibbs said. “And I have no doubt they have their cares and concerns as well.” 

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said, “The speaker is pleased to have an opportunity to speak with the president about our plans to reduce economic uncertainly and create jobs by cutting spending and breaking down barriers to private sector investment.”

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House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday that he and his fellow Republican leaders found “common ground’’ with President Obama during a lunch at the White House, but did not reach any specific agreements on how to cut spending to reduce the federal deficit.

With the White House preparing to send a free trade agreement with South Korea to Congress for its approval, Mr. Boehner said the two sides believe that trade is one area where they might work out a compromise. He said he told the president the House is ready to take up not only the South Korea pact, but also two others that have been stalled – one with Colombia and another with Panama.

But the White House has said it is seeking amendments to the Colombia and Panama agreements before it will move forward.

Mr. Obama, who vowed to do a better job of reaching out to Republicans after the drubbing his party took in the November mid-terms, invited Mr. Boehner, Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican leader, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican whip over for a discussion that focused largely on the economy. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, also attended.

Mr. Cantor called it “a fairly robust conversation about the need for all of us to work together to send a signal that we’re serious about cutting spending. We had agreement on that. I guess the particulars and the details will be where the disagreements may lie.’’

There’s little question about that; the initial list of budget cuts produced today by Republicans in the House took aim straight at some of Mr. Obama’s most favored proposals, such as those involving green energy and high speed passenger trains.

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What happens when you get four former White House press secretaries spanning two decades of political history into a room?

A fair amount of candor, it turns out.

The four press secretaries — Dee Dee Myers and Michael D. McCurry, who served President Bill Clinton, and Ari Fleischer and Dana Perino, who served President George W. Bush — exchanged stories, shared tips, analyzed mistakes and discussed the future of the news media and of political communication during a frank and wide-ranging discussion Monday evening at George Washington University.

The talk, moderated by Frank Sesno, a former CNN correspondent who now directs the university’s school of media and public affairs, was supposed to include a third Clinton press secretary, Joe Lockhart, but he had to stay away because of a broken femur. Here’s some of what they discussed:

Staying on Message in Egypt

“If you’re in a crisis, you should probably be all synced up,” Ms. Perino said, noting the seemingly disparate messages emanating from the White House, the State Department and Frank G. Wisner, the administration’s emissary to the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.

“This is one of the great examples of the complexity of this job in the global world we now live in,” Mr. McCurry said. “If you’re a White House press secretary or a State Department spokesman, you’re speaking to multiple audiences simultaneously and you have sometimes nuanced messages you’re delivering.”

Ms. Wisner’s message to Mr. Mubarak, Mr. McCurry said, “may not be the same message you want the global audience to reach. It is a real, real challenge.”

Mr. Fleischer offered a generous interpretation. “I happen to think — don’t tell anybody this — but Barack Obama is handling this quite well,” Mr. Fleischer said, his voice dropping to a stage whisper. “Shh. My view is, this is one where you really want to be slow and steady: slowly say goodbye to President Mubarak and steadily push reform.”

Press Briefings

Ms. Perino said she had a rule in her office: “The worst thing that could happen was to be surprised at the podium.” (Given the 24/7 news cycle, though, the questions posed at the midday briefings are usually not a surprise, since questions have been coming in all morning, she added.)

Mr. McCurry suggested that he regretted his decision to open up the White House press briefings to full television coverage, in 1995.

“These briefings are the raw ingredients of news coverage of the White House. They are not news in and of themselves,” he said. “It was an idiot who allowed news cameras to be put in there. … That would be me.”

He said that televising the briefings was “a good idea in 1995, a bad idea when Monica Lewinsky came along.” The line drew much laughter.

Mr. McCurry even suggested changing the format of the briefings, if not scuttling them altogether. “We have to reinvent the function of public information within the government and, I think, marginalize the role of the press secretary — or limit the role of the press secretary,” he said

Lying vs. Withholding

When Mr. Sesno asked if was ever “O.K. to lie or knowingly withhold information,” Ms. Perino immediately said, “Never.”

“Wait a minute — those are two very different questions,” Mr. McCurry interjected, drawing laughter.

Mr. McCurry said it was acceptable at times to “tell the truth slowly,” and that there were times when disclosure “might put someone’s life in jeopardy” or violate “political or diplomatic protocols.” He added, “but you can never lie,” because doing so would destroy the press secretary’s credibility.

Mr. McCurry recalled the well-known January 1998 briefing at which he read a statement by Mr. Clinton denying “an improper relationship” with Ms. Lewinsky, and then steadfastly refused to elaborate, saying, “I am not going to parse the statement.”

Mr. McCurry said he did not know the whole truth of Mr. Clinton’s involvement with Ms. Lewinsky at the time.

Ms. Myers described a low point, in January 1994, when she told reporters that the F.B.I. was still looking into whether the Iraqi government was behind an assassination attempt on the elder George Bush. The next day, American troops bombed Baghdad in retaliation for the plot; Mr. Clinton had received and reviewed the F.B.I. report, unknown to Ms. Myers.

“I realized in hindsight — too late — that what I should have said was: When the president receives information from the F.B.I., he’ll make a decision, and until then I have nothing more to say,” she said. Instead, Ms. Myers acknowledged, she lost credibility with journalists who observed that she had been out of the loop.

Democrats and Republicans

Are Democrats worse at staying on message than Republicans? Mr. Sesno asked.

Mr. McCurry thought so. The Democratic activists of his era came out of social-movement politics and tended to believe the press would be on their side. In contrast, Republicans were “more adept at the skills of mass communication, advertising, public relations from the beginning,” he said, arguing that the modern White House press apparatus began under President Richard M. Nixon.

Mr. Fleischer said that account was “pretty plausible,” but noted that the younger President Bush drew lessons from the infighting of his father’s administration. Mr. Fleischer said he was proud that internal dissent within the second Bush administration “never leaked,” and did not mind that it was seen as “secretive” and “tight-lipped.”

Advice for the new press secretary

The press secretaries had sparing advice for the newest member of their club, Jay Carney, a former Washington bureau chief for Time Magazine, who is about to replace Robert Gibbs.

“When you’re a journalist, every instinct, every skill you have is to cover the world, which is really different from selling the news or selling your boss,” Mr. Fleischer said, while describing Mr. Carney as “smart, fast on his feet, very good looking — he’ll do great on camera.”

Mr. McCurry chimed in: “I think humor, a sense of humor, can defuse really tense situations.”

Ms. Perino added: “If it’s self-deprecating. When it’s mean against somebody else, it’s not.”

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