Jay Carney Steps Down as White House Press Secretary

As my Swiss friend Romie might say, "What the big deal is?" Why should it be suspicious or controversial that a press secretary would resign? It's a position with a rather high turnover rate. George W. Bush had four of them in eight years. Jay Carney was President Obama's second.
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I'm also seeing a bunch of Twitter and other commentary from Right Wing World, calling Carney a "serial liar," and worse. Which I find kind of amusing, since the position is about "spin," though not everyone would call that lying. It's a rather thankless position, one that does not lend itself well to blunt honesty. And I wonder, who would the right consider an honest press secretary? Ari Fleischer? Ha! Dana Perino? Haha! The late (and former FOX "News" Sunday host) Tony Snow? No way.

So no, I don't think Carney set himself apart as particularly worse than any of his predecessors.  But frankly, I haven't been a fan of very many of these guys (and gals). Historically, I rank them right in there with the heads of the DNC and RNC for people I don't particularly like to listen to.  All of them are in a position of spinning to their own advantage, all the time. But that might be the difference between a liberal like me, and your typical hardcore conservative: I don't love the person in this position simply because he's "on my team." What do I mean? Scroll down below the excepted article below, and I'll show you.

[Excerpt]

White House press secretary Jay Carney leaving

Jay Carney is stepping down as White House press secretary, President Barack Obama announced on Friday. Obama said Carney told him of his decision in April, and Carney later said he plans to leave the position in mid-June. The President announced that deputy press secretary Josh Earnest will step into the role. . .

Read more at: CNN

Now, what did I mean by the hero-worship some on the right have had of the president of their party's spokesman? Well, here you go. Right wing outpost FreeRepublic.com had a love-fest with Bush era press conferences, particularly those of Tony Snow, who was himself--it is alleged--a "FReeper." This image would accompany any post regarding a White House press conference. Can you imagine a fawning graphic like this for any other politician?

Former Press Secretary Tony Snow Dies

Image cribbed from Free Republic, where Tony Snow was revered and idolized

When Sen. Jesse Helms died last week, I publicly pondered, "What do you do when a person you totally revile passes away?" In the case of Tony Snow, you might think I'd feel the same way, but I don't. While I take issue with his career choices, he seemed like a man of great intellect and humor. As a non-political talk show host, he probably would have really made a splash (without ticking anybody off).

53 is just way too young to go. And it somehow seems unfair that both Tim Russert and Tony Snow--very political animals--would be deprived of seeing the outcome of this fall's election. There is a noteworthy difference between the deaths of Russert and Snow. Russert's death provoked an outpouring of fond rememberances from colleagues, to the point of over-saturation on the news channels. I read several mentions in the blogosphere, but never got the feeling that bloggers and commenters were actually grieving.

By contrast, conservative bloggers and commenters are very, very upset by this. Their reaction seems deeply personal in a way I don't quite understand. As you can tell by the graphic above, conservatives--at least those who consider their political ideology to be a core identity--loved Tony Snow. And they really seem to be feeling grief today. Ordinarily I might say something snarky about that, but right now that doesn't feel right. RIP, Tony Snow.

[Excerpt]

Tony Snow, Former Bush Press Secretary, Dies at 53

Tony Snow, a former press secretary to President George W. Bush who brought his outspoken style as a Fox News commentator to the White House, died in Washington early today of cancer. He was 53.

"It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day,'' Bush said in a statement. "He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work. . ."

Read more at: Bloomberg

Reporter Finally Gets to Question Dana Perino

Photo from Chron

Poor Dana Perino. She has the same job as any other White House Press Secretary: she's a spokesliar. And in the Bush Administration, that is a doozy of a job. But she doesn't have the slickness of Ari Fleicsher or Tony Snow. She doesn't have the flop-sweat of Puffy McMoonface Scott McClellan, but he genuinely seemed to be repeating what he thought was true, like someone else supplied the lies to him.

Perino is different from all of them. She sputters and stammers, while sounding irritated should she get the odd tough question. One of my favorite (and probably too frequent) sources for this blog is The Raw Story. They have their own reporter in the press room, but he's been shut out of the questioning by Perino after a particularly difficult question he asked some time ago.

Perino was shamed into letting him ask a question today, which resulted in her trademark stammering. From my point of view, it was pretty funny. But I'll bet he doesn't get picked to ask another question for a while.

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White House Blacklist Breakthrough: Online media team up for free press victory

I thought it was shameful that 10 days after David Barstow's NY Times article about how the establishment media colluded with the Pentagon to sell the war in Iraq and the "war on terror" to the American people by hiring the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" as military analysts, no one had asked the White House about it. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Keith Olbermann Blogging at DailyKos

Photo from source, NewsBusters

The host of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann has posted a few blog posts at the left-wing site, Daily Kos. I've found a few right-wing sites that are not happy with this development:

[Excerpt from TVNewser]

Some in the blogosphere have raised questions about Olbermann's role at the site, which describes itself as "a Democratic blog, a partisan blog." Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters writes, "Consider again the media firestorm that would come from (Brit) Hume or (Chris) Wallace doing the same thing at a conservative website. Think such a demonstration of rightwing bias and partisanship would raise a few eyebrows?"

Now, far be it for me to defend Keith Obermann, as I'm sure he's well equipped to do so for himself. But this sort of cries out for a response. Because they've forgotten one very prominent news personality. Tony Snow, late of FOX "News," and later promoted to White House Press Secretary, was a frequent writer on über-right-wing FreeRepublic. And interestingly, his posts were "scrubbed" from the site after he got the White House gig.

Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Mort Kondrake, George Will and many other "news" personalities also write political opinion pieces. Why not Olbermann?

Lamentable as it might be, the cable news business often blurs the lines between news, entertainment, punditry, politics and more. There's a reason that I refer to FOX "News" using the quotes. Countdown is on a news network, but is something of a hybrid show. Politically, it is no more biased than just about anything on FOX, but it does have a different format than most shows. If I had to categorize it, I'd call it a news and information commentary show, from a left-wing (or perhaps more accurately, non-right-wing) perspective.

Seriously people, look at just about any personality-driven show on any of the cable news channels. Check out Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs. Most of them are not straight-ahead news shows, and most show some sort of bias. That may be a sad state of affairs, but it is the truth.

More right-wing irritability at: NewsBusters

Tony Snow & Rush Limbaugh Love "Kicking Ass"

Photo available all over the web, this one from ThinkProgress.org

I made another lurking appearance at FreeRepublic.com, curious about their response to Tony Snow's departure. As you might remember, Freepers have something of a crush on Mr. Snow.

What I found is one of the best examples of the difference between liberals and conservatives when viewing the exact same information. When I heard that President Bush had said, "we're kicking ass in Iraq," I had this response.

But in this thread, which posts the transcript of Snow's appearance on The Rush Limbaugh Show, Snow and Limbaugh had this reaction:

[Excerpt]

RUSH: What about the....? I've been mentioning this a couple times today and want to get your take on it because I may be overstating it. But I kept hearing all month, "August! A big, big Tet-like offensive from Al-Qaeda," to precede the appearance today of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and it didn't happen. It tells me it's hard to be offensive when you're on defense. They are on the run.

TONY SNOW: Yeah, absolutely right. As the president has quoted, "We're kicking their ass." (laughing)

RUSH: I love that, by the way. (laughing)

Read it in context, as if that matters, at: FreeRepublic.com

Tony Snow Confirms Departure

Photo from Wikipedia.com

Resignation is in the air, and Tony Snow is not missing that boat. He has said he'd be leaving, and now he's confirmed it. The official story is that he's out of money, not that he is too ill. I hope that is true, but have learned not to trust a word he says, so who knows.

Get well, Tony, but please do retire. Thank you.

[Excerpt]

Bush press secretary Snow to leave post

WASHINGTON - Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, will leave this month to devote time to writing, speaking and playing a more active public role in combating cancer, a disease that he has confronted for three roller-coaster years.

Dana Perino, the principal deputy press secretary, will take Snow's place on Sept. 14, marking the first time that President Bush has assigned a woman as voice of the White House in his administration.

Snow, battling a recurrence of cancer he had hoped was in remission when he became the president's chief spokesman in April 2006, maintained that it is not the disease, but rather a financial burden his work has placed on his family, which is forcing him to leave.

Read more at: ChicagoTribune.com

Tony Snow the Next to Go?

Photo from source, Wikipedia.com

I have mixed emotions on this one. To report about Tony Snow one must acknowledge his fight with cancer, and that requires a little tact. Let me be clear, I do not wish the man any ill will or health. And I also understand that his position as White House Press Secretary requires him to be an artful dodger.

Tony Snow has taken that phrase to new extremes. Prior to what was essentially an in-house promotion, Snow worked as a "newscaster" on FOX "News," and was also a regular presence on FreeRepublic.com. What better place to hone your craft as "White House Spokesliar" (™ The Stephanie Miller Show)?

Snow added a genial gravitas to the position previously held by the eternally flustered Scott McClellan. And it always spooks me a little when lies are told with authority. So, I'll be glad to see him go, and I hope it is to recover completely, but to never darken the airwaves again. Well, unless it's as a game show host or something. . .

[Excerpt]

Tony Snow Signals His Resignation, Plus ‘A Couple’ More ‘Coming Up In The Next Month’

After the recent resignation of Karl Rove, media outlets speculated on what the rest of President Bush’s term will look like without “the Architect.” The President is “fighting lame duck status,” reported the AP. In response, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow shot back: “As the president has said many times, he’s going to sprint to the tape.”

But even Tony Snow doesn’t want to be around for that sprint. In an interview with the conservative Hugh Hewitt show, Snow signaled that he will not stay until the end of the term. He also mentioned that there are “probably a couple” of other high-level resignations “coming up in the next month or so.”

Read more at: ThinkProgress.org

Tony Snow, FreeRepublic's Star Freeper

Photo from Wikipedia.org

I've mentioned before, in passing, that Tony Snow used to be a regular contributor at the far (far, far) right-wing blog, FreeRepublic.com. You might say, he's their star Freeper. Curiously, immediately after it was announced that Snow was "promoted" from FOX "News" reporter to freaking White House Press Secretary, his posts on FR were mysteriously purged.

Fortunately, some enterprising web-head archived them, and they are here for your reading pleasure.

NOTE: The links are in the column on the left of their web site, after you click this link: Archive.org

As a side-note, there is a blog in existence, consisting of people who have been banned by FreeRepublic, probably for having the ability to reason.

Check it out at: VillageOfTheBanned.

Justice Roberts: Needs Better Spokesmen

Photo from Stupid Monkey Planet, via HuffingtonPost

Not much time to post, just this to say: the two sources for this article are George W. Bush, and Tony Snow. Forgive me, but these sources alone are somewhat lacking in credibility. Beyond that, doesn't this read like "George Bush calling his employee, John Roberts?" That's how it sounds to me. And that ticks me off.

Read all about it: Chief Justice Roberts says he's fine after seizure

Iraqi Government Misses All of Its Targets

More bad news for the Bush Administration (and not so good for the rest of the world, either). Can't wait to see how they spin this one. Mr. Snow? I know he won't let us down.

[Excerpt]

WASHINGTON—A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.
One likely result of the report will be a vastly accelerated debate among President Bush's top aides on withdrawing troops and scaling back the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The "pivot point" for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush's so-called "surge" plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said.

Read more at: DenverPost.com

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