Okay, so my title doesn’t exactly imply breaking news, but I thought, “Tony Snow: Dickhead,” would be inappropriate, so let’s just jump right into today’s White House press briefing…
Many of the questions centered around Bush’s shameful use of TV network time to allegedly “unite” Americans, when in reality he simply regurgitated his recent speeches defending the disaster in Iraq. But the first question was about House Majority Leader Boehner saying of Democrats:
I wonder if they’re more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people. They certainly don’t want to take the terrorists on and defeat them.
So Terry Moran asked:
Do you think that both sides — Democrats and Republicans — want to defeat the terrorists?
Seems like a simple question, doesn’t it? But getting an answer was like pulling teeth.
Tony blathered about understandable “political conflict,” that Americans are united on “important things,” and that Americans understand “political seasons.” Of course, that wasn’t really the question, so Terry tried again:
MR. SNOW: Yes, I do. I mean, I think — I don’t think —
Q So you disagree with —
MR. SNOW: I’m not going to get in a debate over statements that I haven’t seen.
Then he called on David Gregory. Big mistake…if you’re Tony Snow:
Q As you well know, this is not a campaign season about whether America is a great place or not, right? I mean, it’s a lot more substantive than that, and it has to do with the path that this President took the country after 9/11.
Now, when a Republican leader of Congress says, “I wonder if Democrats are more interested in protecting terrorists than they are in protecting the American people,” as a spokesman for the President, do you think that it’s your duty to say that that’s out of bounds or not?
MR. SNOW: Frankly, again, this is one of these things — I haven’t even seen the Boehner statement.
Tony then proceeded to blather some more about political seasons and expected name calling…a discussion about Dick Cheney’s Meet The Press appearance, but again, he didn’t answer the basic question. But David Gregory didn’t give up:
Q Do Democrats want to protect terrorists more than the American people? What do you think?
MR. SNOW: Again, I know you think that in the last hour — I had an hour to prepare, because we had long meetings —
Q I’m asking you that question — forget about what John Boehner said, I’m putting the proposition to you. Do you have an opinion on that topic?
MR. SNOW: Do I think — no, I think —
Q That Democrats are more interested in protecting terrorists than the American people?
MR. SNOW: No.
There, that wasn’t so hard, was it Tony? And with that painful admission out of the way, they moved onto the difference between sectarian violence and terrorism:
Q Tony, your own commanders have said the biggest threat in Iraq is sectarian violence, the threat of civil war. And, yet, the President keeps talking about the threat of terror. […]
MR. SNOW: — if you have an anarchic society that collapses, and therefore you end up having a rudderless, weak, divided society — as you had in Afghanistan, which paved the way for the Taliban to take over — then you’ve got a situation that is ripe for the kind of terrorist breakthrough that we’re talking about in Iraq.
Get that? Snow agrees that terrorists aren’t the big threat in Iraq, but if we leave, they might be. So let’s do a brief historical recap: There were no terrorists in Iraq before we invaded, now there are some terrorists, but most of the violence is sectarian in nature, but if we leave the terrorists might take over. And we don’t want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud. Or something like that…
Then they moved on to the recent article that says the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq has reported:
…that the prospects for securing that country’s western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there. […]
Devlin offers a series of reasons for the situation, including a lack of U.S. and Iraqi troops, a problem that has dogged commanders since the fall of Baghdad more than three years ago.
Pretty damning, eh? But as Tony explains, that’s just one guys assessment and it certainly doesn’t mean more troops are needed:
— you’re assuming that there’s only one person who’s entitled to speak on it. It is conceivable that other people have differing assessments.
Sure Tony, it’s conceivable…in Bizarro World. And what about the claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda? The claim that has been repeated ad nauseum by this administration, even in the face of the recent Senate report denying that any connection existed? Tony was ready for that one:
MR. SNOW: The Senate report — rather than get — you know what, I don’t want to get into the vagaries of the Senate report…
And for anyone not aware, the definition of “vagaries” is:
an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion
And so, the entire body of work by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is dismissed. But I suppose the only alternative was to call the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense liars…which would of course mean Tony would have to be honest. What a conundrum!
And finally, the questions about Bush’s 9/11 “unity speech”:
Q Was the President’s speech last night political?
MR. SNOW: No.
Q How can you say that?
MR. SNOW: Because, I’ll tell you — how can I not?
Apparently Tony didn’t actually watch the speech (okay, neither did I). Then Tony got defensive and in doing so, elicited the funniest damn response of the day:
MR. SNOW: What was the political statement? Tell me what the political sentence was. Give me the sentence.
Q I’ll tell you exactly what it was. It was a crystallized greatest hits of the eight-day period in which he made four speeches where he laid out his philosophical underpinnings about the war on terror heading into the election. And he boiled it down, crystallized it and laid it out last night on network TV for 17 minutes. And it was in direct contrast to what you came in here and told us Friday.
Whoo! Amen, brother!
And then Tony blathered and lied…it wasn’t political, no, it really wasn’t. That no, he couldn’t name anyone who thought pulling out of Iraq would mean the terrorists would leave us alone. That wasn’t directed at Democrats, it was just what terrorists thought.
Q But he said the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out the terrorists would leave us alone. Has someone suggested that they feel the terrorists would leave us alone if we left Iraq?
MR. SNOW: No, what he’s trying to do is to repeat to you exactly what the terrorists think.
Huh? And then Tony ended his tap dance with:
And what the President — look, it would be great if both political parties right now would start realizing that the national interest is to win the war on terror and to present a united front. It’s not likely to happen in a political year. There are going to be disagreements. It’s been that way in every war and in every administration, but we’ll get through it.
In other words, things would be so much better for the reincarnation of FDR and Ronald Reagan if the Democrats would just agree with him.
There was much, much more, but this is already too long…
