Fleischer Ends White House Stint

Press Secretary Ari Fleischer wrapped up his White House job Monday, planning to work in the private sector and going on the lecture circuit.

Looking back on his 30 months as President Bush's chief spokesman, spokesman Ari Fleischer told CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller it was a job in which he was often pulled in opposite directions, serving two bosses.

"Make no mistake. I work for the President. He is my boss, I reflect and represent him," he said. "But I also, by virtue of my job, am paid to help the press, to get the stories, to find out the truth. So therefore, there's a lot of walking the tightrope in this job and no safety net underneath, because the press wants to know everything and the President does not want the press, especially in a time of war, to know everything. And I'm the guy in the middle."

Taking over as the "guy in the middle" is Fleischer's long-time deputy Scott McClellan. He'll have to find his own style of tightrope walking.

"The job means always, always telling the truth. But I don't tell all the truth," Fleischer said. "There are things I hear in the Oval Office that I'm not going to talk about: things that are classified, things that deal with war, things the President does not want me to talk about, decisions that the President has not yet made."

Fleischer sees negativity as a flaw in the White House press corps.

"I think that's an issue where I wish the journalist industry, and particularly journalism schools, would scratch their heads a little bit and look inside and think about that, because I do think there can be a tendency to see what is wrong to such a great degree that the press sometimes misses what is totally there," he told Knoller.

He was also disturbed by reporters' efforts to play "gotcha" with him at briefings, or play "trip the Press Secretary."

"{They] ask questions that are really less designed to make solid news as it is to paint the alley, paint the corner, and see if the Press Secretary enters it, so that they can play 'gotcha,'" he said.

Fleischer will stay in the public eye after he leaves the White House — including a guest shot on CBS' David Letterman Thursday night.