At 9:10 this morning, President Bush officially named radio and television commentator Tony Snow the new White House Press Secretary, noting, among other things, that Snow has "taught children in Kenya" and that he "belongs to a rock band called Beats Working." It is other aspects of Snow's resume, however, on which many bloggers are focused.
Aspects, for example, like Snow's employment at Fox News. Anglofille (The Diary of an American "Fille" in London) offers her expert expat opinion that "at long last, the blurry line between Fox News and the Bush administration has been completely erased" and wonders, "What's next, Bill O'Reilly replacing Rumsfeld? He couldn't possibly do a worse job."
Elsewhere, one would be forgiven for thinking, after reading Hugh Hewitt's post on Snow's appointment, that it was Hewitt himself who had received the job offer. Indeed Hewitt seems to take Snow's selection as a sort of personal affirmation, using it to praise the hard work of radio hosts like himself: "One of the joys of doing what we do is that it allows us [to] read widely and constantly, to interview experts and opposites, and, crucially, to practice the hardest words for anyone in Washington to say: 'I don't know.'" (Hewitt sometimes says that he "doesn't know" something? Hey, we didn't know.) Hewitt continues with his rumination on what he and Snow do: "We confront churlish folks and gentle but ill-informed folks, and passion and bigotry and patriotism and honor and every other sort of American virtue and emotion every day. There isn't much the WH press can throw at Snow that he hasn't already fielded a few hundred times."
Over at Captain's Quarters, Ed, too, sees Snow's radio background as a key to his future success in the briefing room. "[T]he tenor of press briefings will change significantly from the sieges we have seen with Scott McClellan," asserts Ed, since "[f]rom his years of radio duty, Tony knows how to talk extemporaneously and engage in debate on a moment's notice" and "[i]t would be hard to imagine Tony being at a loss for words or failing to present the best case for any position in which he believes."
Also not at a loss for words is Brian Maloney (aka The Radio Equalizer), who sees some "low-blow oppo tactics" being used against Snow -- by "the Fox News Channel-hating 'mainstream' press" and "lefty critics." Maloney's evidence? A handful of critical blog posts about the appointment, including something he dug up in the comments section of Daily Kos in which the commenter calls Snow's appointment a "huge gaffe," noting that "attention will be paid to his vile lies of the last five years." As for the Fox-hating mainstream press? Well, Maloney catches the New York Times reporting that "Dems [are] using Snow's recent criticism of Bush against him" and he fingers some "nice BBC spin" in which "Snow is reduced to merely a 'radio presenter.'" (Note to Maloney: this isn't so much a "low-blow oppo tactic" as it is evidence that the Brits just talk funny. Across the pond diapers are nappies, trucks are lorries, and radio hosts are "radio presenters.")
It's not just the "Dems" talking about Snow's recent criticisms of Bush -- it's also Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan points to several Snow-on-Bush comments (helpfully compiled by "progressive" blog, ThinkProgress) with which he agrees and adds: "But I'm not going to stand in front of the press and defend this record now, am I? The first question Snow may get if he takes the job is about his own splendid eviscerations of this president's rank betrayal of fiscal conservatism and limited government in the past. Good luck, Tony. You'll need it."
Finally, playing the role of killjoy (or voice of reason, take your pick), Sploid is here to remind left-leaning optimists that while "Snow has been rather critical of Bush and his policies of late, making many hopeful that his candor will continue to trickle through his White House press briefings ... the man's being hired by the president to tell the press what the president wants them to hear. The idea/hope that he'll stray is absurd." The silver lining, says Sploid, is that "it may just be refreshing for folks to be lied to in complete and clear sentences."
Can’t anyone get anything right anymore? Liz Cox Barrett suggests that Brian Maloney offered little evidence of “low-blow oppo tactics” being used against Tony Snow by the “Fox News Channel-hating ‘mainstream’ press” and Lefty critics.” I wouldn’t characterize much of the stuff as “low-blow oppo tactics,” but there is more substance to his charge than Ms. Barrett’s selections suggest. She cites a New York Times report, but Maloney referred his readers to :anti-Snow Frankenspin” at an “ABC story.” The story to which he referred ran on the ABC News Website, but it was a Reuters story, by Steve Gorman.
Mr. Gorman wrote that Mr. Snow was a “a cable TV fixture on the Fox News Channel.” A fixture? He served as host of Fox News Sunday from 1996 to 2003. A Washington Times columnist? He was briefly an editorial page editor there. His column appeared there, but it was syndicated, and not by the Washington Times. Mr. Gorman wrote that FNC and the Washington newspaper were “both outlets favored by conservatives.” Outlets? Would a Reuters or AP person ever refer to The New York Times and CBS News as “both outlets favored by leftists”?
Mr. Gorman moved on to quote Marty Kaplan, reportedly a media scholar at the University of Southern California, who said that “It’s [Fox News called the right-wing noise machine and now you have one of the chief noise-makers being given the microphone and the podium in the people’s house.” Perhaps that’s better than the four-letter words that liberals and leftists use so frequently, but it’s still name-calling that a “mainstream” news reporter and outfit looked for and ran with.
Few distinguish between Fox News and Fox News Channel. People like Major Garrett and James Rosen work for the Fox News Channel, but they are part of Fox News. People like Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, and Bill O’Reilly work for Fox News Channel, but are not part of Fox News. Their prime-time talk shows compete with the low-browed entertainment on the broadcast commercial networks, including that of Fox, and with two other cable news channels. Some of the news reporting is serious and solid, but much is at a tabloid level, e.g., incessant reports on murders and missing people. Fox must have been the only American news outlet to catch Canada’s Stephen Harper being tossed a hostile statement-question--think of Bryant Gumbel’s questions when he worked for the Today show--from a member of the Canadian press before the election. Is it "right wing" to notice that? Or that other networks wouldn't recognize that the question was out of bounds?
Mr. Snow worked the opinion side of the house, not the news side. He did so with remarkably good cheer. He had causes and people he believed in, but this reader of his columns cannot recall a column with the nastiness and falsehoods of Maureen Dowd. He will be a “presenter” now, which isn’t a bad thing: His job will be to present Administration policies and provide a more articulate rationale for those policies than they have had in recent years. George W. Bush may have many virtues, but being articulate and quick rhetorically and showing an understanding of others’ concerns are not among them. Mr. Snow, a graduate of Davidson College, appears smart enough to recognize that, as a man of words, he has a role to play. And his nomination also suggests that he is not alone in the Administration—or outside it, among various conservatives—to recognize the service he might be able to provide. It is time for people on the left to give Tony Snow a break. See how he operates. And give Fox News a break, too.
Again Ms. Barrett writes an article devoid of anything of any importance. When Rumsfeld fielded the question recently about some obscure book, he rightly responded that "He had no time to read all the garbage out there. If he refuted every blog story about the administration, he'd have time for nothing else."
It's absolutely mind blowing to me the amount of coverage spent on blogs that only affirm people's original world view. And even more silly that someone like Snow, a real journalist, should care about the likes of Kos and his ilk, anymore than Hillary Clinton should care about the myriad of independant no name bloggers who take cheap shots at her.
Also worthless is Ms. Barrett's assertion that the "Brits just talk funny." Whether true or not, so what?
Stop wasting time reviewing the back and forth of the blog sphere and focus on real news. There are thousands of blogs out there started by hacks who have nothing to their name except bitter partisanship and unwavering devotion to the party, to the point of saying whatever they feel is neccessary to get their point across. We need to stop treating all these blogs as news as just go back to ignoring them like we used to.
WolvenBear, what is your idea of "real news"? News transmitted to the ignorant masses by the likes of corporate lords like Rupert Murdoch? Very little of what I see in the mainstream media is objective or honest. Quite frankly, the American media is a disgrace.
The blogosphere represents the voice of the people, which is threatening to the establishment and to people like you.