Tony Snow is one of the best Press Secretaries ever...

[MonkeyFunk]

I mean it. He's on the wrong side, entirely, but I've never seen anyone as quick on his feet, as facile with the facts, as obstreperously in-your-face as Snow.

He's MUCH better than Fleischer ever was.

Again, he's on the wrong side... but the next President (who will be a Democrat) should be so lucky as to have someone with Snow's skills.

I wish him the best.

[Ian David]

1. I miss Scotty. He made the press conferences fun and entertaining.

Scotty was like the Chevy Chase of Press Secretaries. He could always be counted on for an endless series of pratfalls.

[MonkeyFunk]

3. True...

he was the best for comedic value.

[Cha]

17. scotty couldn't lie

so well..that's why he was fun.

[endarkenment]

2. Only if by 'best' you mean good with snarky lies.

Is that really the qualification?

[MonkeyFunk]

4. Yes

that's what I mean, and that's my qualification.

The job is Propagandist-in-Chief. Snow is the one of the best.

[endarkenment]

9. Why do we accept that the press secretary's job is liar?

This is part of the problem we face. We no longer bother to hold our leaders to any reasonable standards of openness and honesty and instead expect them to lie with abandon and hide everything they are doing under a thick cover of snarky bullshit. How is a democratic republic supposed to function if its citizens are deliberately kept misinformed?

[On the Road]

5. I Have to Agree with You

How he can do what he does is beyond me. But he does it with a straight face and an air of perfect reasonability.

[EST]

6. Given The wingies' penchant for selecting press people

of stunning mendacity and intellectual tunnel vision, I will take the opposite tack and hope for a democratic secretary of rotten dance steps but a shoot from the shoulder honesty that forces him or her to detest the job.

[MonkeyFunk]

7. That's sweet

[jobycom]

8. I wish him the best in his cancer recovery, but I'll be damned before I will compliment him

for his constant lies. To me, the best press secretary is one who does his job. His job isn't lying to the American people, nor is it selling his president. His job is informing the American people of what the White House is doing, how it interprets the day's events, and why it did whatever it did. We have become too cynical in setting our standards, and in how much political spin we will accept. Part of that is the media's fault-- they never bother to analyze whether a politician's actions are good or bad, they simply analyze the political strategy and/or political impact behind those actions. Thus, we start to assume that the only correct way to analyze a politician is politically.

I reject that argument completely. A political office holder should be judged by the objective standards of how much good they've done in their position, not by how able they have been to manipulate people. It is good that the media points out the spin, the posturing, the political strategy, but they should do so only to inform people of how they are being manipulated. They should pay more attention to the actions and the real world consequences of those actions when discussing politicians.

Snow is the worst of the worst when it comes to Orwellian transposition. He never once worries about whether his words are true or informative, he only worries about how to best make the president look good. He has no conscience in that matter--to him, truth is irrelevant. He is a vile person.

I wish him the best of luck in his cancer treatment. I hope he survives and recovers completely, and lives a long, productive life. I hope he one day discovers the part of his soul that he has lost, and understands why he is wrong (as Lee Atwater did). But I'll be damned if I'll praise his job performance. He represents everything that is wrong in politics today.

And as for wishing that our next Dem president has someone like him... I sure as hell hope not. I want my next president to change more than the R in front of his name.

[MonkeyFunk]

10. I guess I disagree...

the job is not a political elected office. It's a propaganda job. And Snow is very, very good at it.

But I think it's sweet that you think otherwise.

[jobycom]

13. It's not supposed to be a propaganda job, it's just become that.

The Press Secretary isn't paid by the political campaign of the president, it is paid by tax dollars, which means that he or she is OUR employee, not the president's.

I don't mind disagreement, though. :) They're just opinions, anyway.

[tishaLA]

21. You're absolutely right

Tonocchio has been adept at spinning and twisting facts to suit the administration, but the job of the press sec. is not that. The Clinton administration may have been good at it with their press secretaries (Joe Lockhart, Mike McCurry), but Tonocchio has raised it to a high (or low) art.

[fuzzyball]

25. Nope, the REAL job of a WHPS is to put the BEST SPIN

on what the executive branch is doing. He/she is
not a judge or a religious leader who are supposed
to tell the truth. The press secretary has the sole
job of making the administration look good.

In my memory, JFK had one of the best. I forget his
French sounding name. But he was a master at his job.

[DemBones DemBones]

26. Pierre Salinger. nt

[kirby]

11. He is one of the WORST ever...

He is horrible... He is arrogant, disingenuous, and blatantly spins. He stumbles and fumbles. His Fox roots are clear and were not 'checked at the door' when he took the job.

Best wishes for his recovery though.

I have to turn the TV off during a lot of his press conferences because they are so useless and his presentation is so poor. At least with Ari and Puffy McMoonFace, I could watch the full thing. Thus Snow is doing a bad job of getting the message out if he alienates the viewers.

[leftofthedial]

12. he's a waste of skin

and now a metaphor fo the bush cabal's reign. Fleischer was the master of the bald-faced lie. Snow has repeatedly and increasingly misspoken, inadvertently letting the truth slip out. That is a fatal sin for a repuke press secretary.


I wish his family well.

[madrchsod]

14. i`m wondering if they go with the lady that has been filling in

for tony? i watched yesterday and she`s not as good as tony...hey i need a job.....

[blitzen]

15. it's true that he's glib...but he overreaches quite often and...

ends up saying stupid things--and things that sometimes even harm the Prez's cause.

But I'm sure that in the eyes of the Bushies he is the best ever.

[Bake]

16. Is Snowjob stepping down?

Any word on that yet?

Bake

[DemBones DemBones]

28. No word so far, just speculation, mostly that he'll stay on.

I'd think he'll be out for some time, though, probably requiring surgery and chemo. I'm not sure it would be good for him, or that it will be good for Elizabeth Edwards, to keep on ticking when they're battling metastasized cancer, because of the stress that's part of politics. But it's their choice and none of us know what we'll do in x situation until we're actually faced with x situation.

Good to see you, Bake, haven't seen you in a long time. :hi:

[ToeBot]

18. No, he's not the best - he's not even good...

The quality of propaganda is in it's believability. Nothing Snow said is/was the least bit believable. On the rare occasions when a truth would slip out, it would stand in contrast to the rest as even more mendacious than the usual. He is nothing but a face.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

19. To be fair to Tony...

He didn't become press secretary until the air was already leaking out of the Bush Balloon. It's like somebody went up to the First Mate of the Titanic twenty minutes after it hit the iceberg and said, "OK, it's your turn to be captain."

He's fighting a losing battle, and I guess he knows that.

[GreenTea]

20. The better & smoother the liar...the better? Man you have your priorities

on a different planet than I.

[Forkboy]

22. Goebbels was pretty good to.

[fuzzyball]

23. and I agree that Tony is a real human being with keen intellect

Hope he will fight his cancer and win.

[DFW]

24. What they all need

....is CJ Gregg.

When it comes to presidential press secretaries, maybe it's time life started imitating art.

[Colobo]

27. The tribalists in here

can't control themselves, and do not stop spewing their hatred for people on the right...

I wish Tony Snow and his family well. I used to listen to his radio show in the past, and he was actually better than Hannity, Savage and the others.