I listened to Tony Snow be a horse's ass for the last time at today's White House press briefing. After the following exchange took place, I threw my copy of Marilyn Quayle's "Embrace the Serpent" through my television screen:
Q: Tony, I want to go back to the issue of an apology, and I want — Are the American people owed some kind of apology from someone in this administration for the leaking of a C.I.A. person’s name, personnel’s name?
Mr. Snow: Yeah, it’s improper to be leaking those names.
Q: Is — yes, it’s improper. So you’re saying someone — someone in this administration owes the American public an apology?
Mr. Snow: I’ll apologize. Done.
Q: No, it’s not. I mean, that’s flippant. That’s a very flippant way of doing something very serious. It’s a very serious matter. That was very flippant.
Mr. Snow: Well, no, it’s — no, I think in some ways, the characterization — because there are so many complex issues involved in this, including the providence of it. And furthermore, the fact that the — in the Washington culture, things get leaked all the time. And I’m not aware — how many of you —
Q: Does that make it right?
Mr. Snow: How many of you have apologized for a controversial name appearing under tough circumstances in a news story? I dare say the answer’s zero.
I get so tired of Tony Snow being flippant about serious questions. To the reporter's (did anyone catch who she was?) credit she didn't let him get away with it. She told him he was being flippant. And Tony Snow does this kind of crap over and over again. I did a Google search on, "'Tony Snow' flippant" and here is some of what comes up:
Tony Snow on Mark Foley:
This morning on CNN, Soledad O’Brien asked Tony Snow why “any communication between a 16-year-old and a congressman” didn’t “raise red flags — major, massive red flags” with Speaker Dennis Hastert and others who have known about the communications for months.
Snow responded, “I hate to tell you, but it’s not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill. And there have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more than simply naughty e-mails.”
From June 14, 2007 press briefing:
Helen Thomas asked Tony Snow if there are “any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war.” Stunningly, Snow claimed that President Bush is actually on the “frontlines” of the war in Iraq.
March 1, 2007, as posted in Salon:
White House press secretary Tony Snow on reports that two U.S. combat brigades will "surge" into Iraq without undergoing the usual counterinsurgency training in California's Mojave Desert first: "Well, but they can get desert training elsewhere, like in Iraq."
On his reference to "Tar Babies":
Well, apparently, what’s happened is, apparently some people are unfamiliar with the pathways of American culture, and don’t realize the old Uncle Remus story where somebody hugs a tar baby. …
I’ve decided, though, because it’s a classic case of, I think, somebody trying to sort of pick a fight. I’ll probably take that out of my toolchest of rhetorical devices, rather than having to explain a hundred and fifty years of American culture.
On NPR referencing said "tar-baby" incident:
“One of the problems with NPR is that there is so much political correctness that if you’ve got a name that looks like it was made up by Rudyard Kipling , you’ve got a better chance of getting hired. I’m a white guy named Tony Snow for heaven’s sake. That’s as white as it goes."
On the President not wearing a seat belt:
United States President, George W. Bush was caught by members of the press this past weekend, not wearing his seat belt while "driving slowly" in a truck on his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
After the incident, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow answered questions based on Bush's not wearing one. One question asked was "does he [Bush] wear a seat belt in the limo?"
"I don't know. Let me just back up, I have seen him wear it in the limo. I'm not going to give you a report card because my ventures in the limo are relatively rare. Well, it's always important to wear seat belts, especially when driving slowly on the ranch," said Snow to reporters.
Regarding the President's reaction to the Iraq troop death toll reaching 2500 soldiers.:
"It's a number and anytime we reach one of these 500 benchmarks, people want something."
Regarding Mrs. Bush's removal of a cancerous skin lesion and the WH referring to it only as a "sore":
Q: Going back to Mrs. Bush, it seems that there are two things going on, in terms of not informing the public and the press. Which was it, was it that it was medical privacy that was the reason for not informing us, or was it that it was no big deal?
Mr. Snow: It was medical privacy, but also what we’re trying to do is to console you with the notion that, in addition, it was no big deal.
Q: So there was a conscious decision that, okay, we’re not going to tell anybody because this is medical privacy, this is something for us, it’s not for —
Mr. Snow: Well, I don’t know, if you’ll be happy to share all your private medical information, maybe we can change it around. But I don’t think that’s appropriate, nor does the First Lady. She’s got the same privacy rights when it comes to her medical information that you and I do.
Q: But was the decision made not to share it?
Mr. Snow: Yes, in the sense — let me put it this way: It never occurred to anybody that this would be a big deal. It never occurred — but suddenly everybody is –
Q: First it was described as a sore, and now, a month-and-a-half later, it’s revealed that it’s cancer. So there was one story out there that’s been corrected.
Mr. Snow: Do you understand — if you’ve been — there are literally millions of Americans who have been through this, and you can ask them whether they thought this was a big deal or not. It was quickly diagnosed. They said, the sore is not going away, we’re going to take a look at it. They did. They did a biopsy, they found out it was a squamous cell cancer and they removed it. They did local anesthetic; they removed it.
Q: But the White House might have had an interest in correcting the record when bad information was out there.
Mr. Snow: No, there wasn’t bad information. She had a sore. It wasn’t bad information — that’s what she knew at the time.
I hate him. I really really hate him.