Changing of the Guard

The foaming-at-the-mouth-on-steroids Reasonable White House Press Corps. meets their new zoo-keeper White House Press Secretary.

The Washington Post has the story:

"Fox News commentator Tony Snow was named White House press secretary today after top officials assured him that he would be not just a spokesman but an active participant in administration policy debates, people familiar with the discussions said.

A former director of speechwriting for President Bush's father, Snow views himself as well positioned to ease the tensions between this White House and the press corps because he understands both politics and journalism, said sources familiar with the President's decision.
On April 26, 2006 President Bush announced that Fox News anchor and radio host Tony Snow would replace Scott McClellan as White House press secretary.

'He knows most of you,' Bush said today as he announced Snow's appointment in the briefing room where outgoing press secretary Scott McClellan has presided, 'and he's agreed to take the job anyway.'

McClellan announced his own departure last week amid a turnover in White House personnel that was sought, in part, by GOP politicians who face a mid-term election with presidential approval ratings at all-time lows.

Snow will become the first Washington pundit -- and an outspoken ideological voice at that -- to take over the pressroom lectern at a time when tensions between journalists and the administration have been running high, over such issues as the Iraq war investigations involving leaks of classified information.

'President Bush hates responding to the press, hates responding to political enemies -- he thinks it's beneath him,' Snow said on Fox News in March. 'He's got a stubborn streak.' What the president needed, he said, was 'a series of vigorous defenses' of his position.

Bush said he was well aware that Snow had often disagreed with him. 'I asked him about that,' Bush said, and 'he said, 'You should hear what I said about the other guy.' '"

The mouth-foamers will salivate at this opportunity. Since Mr. Snow has spoken his mind and not always swallowed the White House Kool-aid, the swallowing-challenged will hoist up his independent comments as though they actually mean something. The only ones they'll impress are their fellow 'foamers on the cocktail circuit.

Tony Snow hasn't said anything that the solid conservative core of the Republican party hasn't already said. Is any conservative happy about the President's fiscal management? Are any impressed with the party's tortured and conflicted immigration and energy policies? Did they give Mr. Bush a standing ovation over his nomination of Harriet Miers, his handling of FEMA's incompetance during Katrina or the Dubai Port fiasco? I don't think so.

The supporters of this president are not the hive mind of brainwashed drones that our Reasonable masters want everyone to believe they are. They actually possess principles and have ideas of their own. They even disagree with the Administration, even though they voted for President Bush twice.

I applaud Mr. Snow's appointment as the new White House Press Secretary. I believe he'll bring the Administration a media saviness and on-message presence that the White House has lacked for a long time. I look forward to seeing how he'll carry the message forward from here.