Snow Job
 

This new Press Secretery is exposing his dependence on teleprompters. Yesterday he really got all tongue-tied when he took a turn into a semantic dead end street:



WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY TONY SNOW: Whether it passes or not, as you know, Terry, there have been a number of cases where civil rights matters have risen on a number of occasions, and they've been brought up for repeated consideration by the United States Senate and other legislative bodies...

Q You mentioned civil rights. Are you comparing this to various civil rights measures which have come to the Congress over the years?

MR. SNOW: Not -- well, these -- it --

Q Is this a civil right?

MR. SNOW: Marriage? It actually -- what we're really talking about here is an attempt to try to maintain the traditional meaning of an institution that has maintained one meeting for -- meaning for a period of centuries. And furthermore --

Q And you would equate that with civil rights?

MR. SNOW: No, I'm just saying that I think -- well, I don't know. How do you define civil rights?

Q It's not up to me. Up to you.

MR. SNOW: Okay. Well, no, it's your question. So I -- if I --

Q (Chuckles.)

MR. SNOW: I need to get a more precise definition.

If this represents communication between the Press and the White House, It doesn't bode well for the future.

He was about to say that people had the civil right to make sure that other people didn't get married? No wonder he lost it.

I feel bad for him. His whole job consists of defending the indefensible.

Expect more fun scenes like these in days to come.

Yeah, well, he took the damn job. Same reason I have no sympathy for Colin Powell.
"Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

There's a slight difference - Colin probably went in figuring he could make a contribution, then later thought he could mitigate, and took far too long (far too long - the UN presentation was inexcusable) to realize he was only lending them his veneer of respectability, and they couldn't care less what he said behind closed doors.

Tony Snow saw via Ari and Scott exactly what he was getting into from the start.

Veneer
 

Seeing himself on TV reading from scripts and teleprompters probably made him think it was easy. Ego has a way of making you think you're better than you are, or that you could always be better than those before you. He's just not good with unscripted, cold questions (Just like W.).

Then he should have resigned in protest the moment he realized what was going on. Anything else was unethical.

Maybe he resigned when he finally realized he couldn't change it? :smack:

Yeah. I think that's what happened. However, I do fault him for not reaching that point before the UN speech.

I concur. :thumbsup: