Opinion: Snow’s job
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Tony Snow, who announced today that he’s stepping down as White House press secretary, is well liked by reporters not only because of his grace under the pressure of serious illness, but also because he has been good copy and good video. He has star quality, which is what you want in someone in his position, which ought to be called ‘minister of Information.’ (‘Minister of Propaganda’ has unpleasant overtones, but it’s also an accurate job description. Presidents need propagandists.)
There was more truth than jollity in President Bush’s comment that ‘it’s been a joy to watch him spar with you.’ Sparring with reporters while the cameras are on was Snow’s primary job, and he did it well. He could be funny as well as argumentative, as witnessed by this exchange from a press briefing on Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame case:
QUESTION: Are the American people owed some kind of apology from someone in this administration for the leaking of a CIA person’s name -- personnel’s name? SNOW: Yes, it’s improper to be leaking those names. QUESTION: You say improper -- you say someone, someone in this administration owes the American public an apology. SNOW: I’ll apologize.
That’s entertainment, but it’s also a legitimate function for a press secretary, who in the era of televised briefings is essentially doing for the president what Robert Novak and Michael Kinsley used to do for ‘the right’ and ‘the left’ on ‘Crossfire.’ He’s an advocate, a spinmeister, not a conveyor belt for information about the federal budget or troop levels in Iraq. It’s a bonus if the talking head is also a thinking head, and Snow was.
Update: An earlier version of this post contained a photo credited to Carrie Devorah, which was used without her permission.