She Says What We All Think!

Michelle Cottle hits it on the mark when she writes that the much-ballyhooed appointment of Tony Snow to the position of White House Press Secretary is, well, too much ballyhooed. For one thing, while this move has been touted for the fact that Snow will supposedly have a role in formulating policy, I have two comments: 1) Bullshit. He might get to talk in meetings, but I do not for one minute believe that Tony Snow just became a player in policymaking circles. 2) This is a good thing? The press secretary is now going to be deciding policy, and then he is going to be a conduit to the press about that policy? So much for the idea of the honest broker.

Furthermore, in many circles, folks are making a big deal about Snow's alleged criticisms of this administration. I'll let Cottle field this one:

Let's not overstate the guy's credentials as an administration critic. With the possible exception of Fred Barnes, Karl Rove's personal Stepford scribe, it is increasingly hard to find even conservative journalists who haven't taken the occasional swipe at this bumbling administration. It's not as though Snow, prior to joining Team Bush, was ever talked about as a notable administration critic--and certainly not on hot-button issues such as Iraq or the administration's antiterror efforts. The White House's hiring George Will would have been ballsy. Snow? Big deal.

It seems to me that Republicans are so starved for anything approximating good news and the media is so caught up in their own onanism that they honestly believe that this is a big story. Meanwhile the four pillars of incompetence, corruption, chaos and carelessness continue to swirl around the White House and the GOP Congress. But at least the media has one of their own to spin lies and now, apparently, save the Bush administration from itself with his new role as an inside player. Harrrumph.