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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (20004)	5/16/2006 4:00:13 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Snow's First Briefing Media Blog Stephen Spruiell Reporting New White House press secretary Tony Snow gave his first televised press briefing today. You can watch the highlights in a video clip linked below that includes: Snow’s first face-off against David Gregory; Bush’s “leadership course” on immigration; and Fact-checking Helen Thomas, who falsely alleged that “millions of Americans have been wiretapped.” Snow explained that the USA Today story said nothing about wiretapping, and explained further why he couldn’t comment on the program: “Let me remind you: It’s a war on terror… Al-Qaeda doesn’t believe in transparency.” He could have done a better job on the NSA phone data program. This is an entirely defensible program based on what we know. He couldn’t confirm or deny the existence of the program, but he could have talked more about what’s been reported and defended the idea that the NSA could create such a database if it wanted to. He got tripped up when he started talking about poll numbers. First he used poll numbers to support a point he was making, then he said the president can’t conduct national security based on poll numbers. Again, discounting for misleading poll questions, the poll numbers have indicated support for this idea. He should not have conceded that the program is unpopular. To his credit, Snow said, “When people were given the specifics [of the program], they did not seem to be terribly troubled.” Thomas screeched, “They are now!” Snow replied, “Well, that may have more to do with the way that it’s being spun.” Other highlights: Snow gave a compelling defense of the president’s new tax cuts. Snow was asked about his yellow “Livestrong” bracelet and got choked up talking about how he survived cancer last year and how health care in the United States had improved so much that he could survive the same disease that killed his mother when he was 17. Overall, I think he got off to a good start. media.nationalreview.com media.nationalreview.com media.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20004)	5/17/2006 5:58:47 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Crazy aunt Helen gets Snowed under! BY JAMES TARANTO Best of the Web Today Wednesday, May 17, 2006 Tony Snow is looking like an inspired choice for White House press secretary. His first televised briefing, yesterday, drew rave reviews from Variety: <<< Snow's experience with GOP politics, TV cameras and live auds [audiences] (in previous roles he worked for Fox News as well as George H.W. Bush) was abundantly on display the moment he stepped to the briefing podium, looked down at notes, then glanced up and, with mock surprise at the packed room, quipped, "I feel so loved!" . . . After less than two minutes, he courteously tossed to the press corps--often compared to a hungry animal--the large remaining bone of briefing time. Reporters tried gnawing for details about the National Security Agency's tracking of phone calls. Affable, low-key, Snow generally repeated only what Bush has already said--that no laws have been broken, yadda yadda. Unlike his predecessor, Scott McClellan, who developed a rep as a brusque stonewaller, Snow, his hands casually holding the podium sides, generally engaged questioners with eye contact and a seeming desire to answer. Cordiality was the defining characteristic, even when rebuffing a premise disguised as a question (a common reportorial tactic). >>> Not always disguised as a question, of course. Snow's exchange with Helen Thomas, American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic, was priceless. Video is here hotair.com And here's the transcript: <<< Thomas: The president today denied he'd ever broken the law in terms of wiretaps. He also indicated that anything that was looked into, any calls, had some sort of foreign aspect either to or from. And he has said he's always obeyed the law. Are all of these stories untrue that we've been reading for the last several days that millions of Americans have been wiretapped? Snow: Well, let's-- Thomas: Are the phone calls turned over to the government? Snow: Okay, let's try to segregate the stories here. What he's said about the terror surveillance program is that these are foreign-to-domestic calls and they were all done within the parameters of the law. He has not commented on the-- Thomas: He, himself, has said he didn't obey that law. Snow: No, he didn't. What he said is that he has done everything within the confines of the law. The second thing is, you're mentioning a USA Today story about which this administration has no comment. But I would direct you back to the USA Today story itself, and if you analyze what that story said, what did it say? It said there is no wiretapping of individual calls, there is no personal information that is being relayed. There is no name, there is no address, there is no consequence of the calls, there's no description of who the party on the other end is. Thomas: Privacy was breached by turning over their phone numbers. Snow: Well, again, you are jumping to conclusions about a program, the existence of which we will neither confirm, nor deny. Thomas: Why? Don't you think the American people have a right to know-- Snow: Because--what's interesting is, there seems to be a notion that because the president has talked a little bit about one surveillance program and one matter of intelligence gathering, that somehow we have to tell the entire world we have to make intelligence gathering transparent. Let me remind you, it's a war on terror, and there are people--I guarantee you, al Qaeda does not believe-- Thomas: He doesn't have a right to break the law, does he? Snow: No, the president is not talking about breaking the law. But al Qaeda doesn't believe in transparency. What al Qaeda believes in is mayhem, and the president has a constitutional obligation and a heartfelt determination to make sure we fight it. >>> All you have to do to win an argument with Helen Thomas is let her gibber; she discredits herself with her outlandish and tendentious statements. It's to Snow's credit that he's not satisfied outwitting her by default but instead used her embarrassing performance to make a serious and substantive point. This is what we need more of from the White House. opinionjournal.com whitehouse.gov variety.com

To: Sully- who wrote (20004)	5/26/2006 2:16:30 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

A great pick by Bush by Mona Charen Townhall.com May 26, 2006 Reports of the president's lame duckness may have been exaggerated. By choosing first Tony Snow as spokesman, and now Karl Zinsmeister as domestic policy adviser, George Bush has demonstrated that he is far from lame, and may even be frisky. Snow is a familiar public figure who brings a welcome dose of humor and easy confidence to the job. Zinsmeister will be less visible, but his impact is potentially huge. It's easy to imagine why the president and Zinsmeister hit if off so well at their first meeting. Zinsmeister, editor of The American Enterprise magazine for 12 years, is an intellectual powerhouse, but he is also a hands-on guy. I imagine the president was pleased to learn that Zinsmeister had been an embedded reporter during the Iraq War and has been back three times since. His reporting (and three books) on the war stressed the terrific professionalism of our troops. He has been less enthusiastic about the press. Here is an excerpt from a 2004 report: "This bias toward [assuming] failure is fanned by what [U.S. News and World Report columnist] Michael Barone calls the 'zero defect standard' of today's media. For months, armchair journalists without the slightest understanding of what real war is like have howled that this guerilla struggle hasn't been run according to a tidy 'plan.' Why did we 'allow' the looting? How come nobody anticipated the IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) threat? Is it wrong for GIs to invade people's houses? . . . Wars never proceed according to plan; they are always fought by the seat of one's pants, through constant improvisation. "On D-Day (one of the most carefully 'planned' military events ever), 4,649 American soldiers were killed within just a few hours -- many through what an accusatory mind could characterize as 'screw-ups' (gliders and paratroopers landing in the wrong places, amphibious and landing craft unloading in water that was too deep, Air Force and Navy failures to suppress German fire on the beaches) . . . By standards of war invoked by some contemporary media observers, those landings could be viewed as traumatic bungles." Under Zinsmeister's leadership, The American Enterprise has become one of the two or three leading political journals in the United States. Recent issues have tackled "Red America: Blue Europe," "Whatever Happened to Small Government?" and "How Political Correctness Damages Policing," among many other topics. Here is Zinsmeister on p.c. attacks on police: "The liberal elites who have indulged every politically correct attack on policing are mostly insulated from the effects of their campaigns. They tend to live in wealthy neighborhoods . . . A thousand people are murdered every year in Los Angeles. If even one percent of those crimes took place in Brentwood or Malibu or the Hollywood Hills, you would hear a lot less claptrap in the L.A. City Council and the Los Angeles Times about how cruel it is to chase down criminals." Like Snow, Zinsmeister has not been an uncritical cheerleader for the Bush administration. In January of this year, he wrote of Bush, "Though he talks a good line about battling government bloat, our current President has shown an eerie lackawanna when it comes to actually keeping a lid on the federal Pandora's box. Quite apart from Katrina or the war on terror, there has been a pattern of troublesome spending spikes right from the beginning of the Bush Administration." Zinsmeister is a keen observer of cultural and political trends in the country, with an eye for the telling detail. "Before 1993, no snowstorm had ever been declared a federal disaster by a U.S. President." Or this about hand-wringing over treatment of captured terrorists: "Would you believe that the number of formal U.S. investigations of how terror detainees are being treated recently reached 189? . . . Of course we need to weed out cruel or out-of-control guards, but the clear picture of the many commissions and blue-ribbon investigations is that our detainment system is pretty tight and self- regulating, that gentleness to the point of political correctness is the norm, and the rogue actions are nearly always found out and punished, usually quite severely." Intellectuals do not have a sterling record as real-world policy makers. But Zinsmeister is unlikely to be spoiled by Washington, D.C. He has chosen to live with his family in upstate New York all these years because he prefers the small town atmosphere, and even for this job he will commute from Baltimore. He brings a voracious curiosity and a well-honed historical perspective to a job and a city that can always use them. Only two and a half years remain -- and they are not the fertile years for a president. But if nothing else, we can be sure that with Zinsmeister's influence, things will not be dull. Mona Charen is the author of Do-Gooders and Useful Idiots. Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com townhall.com townhall.com amazon.com townhall.com