Press Secretary Raising Money, and Eyebrows

[DoYouEverWonder]

October 16, 2006

Tony Snow draped his lanky frame across a wooden lectern, leaned forward and gazed out at 850 adoring Republicans who had paid $175 apiece to hear him speak. There was a conspiratorial gleam in his eye, as if he was about to reveal some deep inner secret from his new life as the White House press secretary.

“Yesterday,” Mr. Snow declared, “I was in the Oval Office with the president —”

He cut himself off, took a perfectly calibrated three-second pause and switched into an aw-shucks voice for dramatic effect: “I just looove saying that! Yeaaah, I was in the Oval Office. Just meeee and the president. Nooooobody else.” The crowd lapped it up.

Live from the suburbs of Chicago — It’s the Tony Snow Outside-the-Beltway Hour! Memo to White House press corps: You can’t catch this show in the briefing room.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/us/politics/16snow.html?hp&ex=1160971200&en=2be77d6bb2fdf3d6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[lowreed]

1. wonder if he flashed his thong?

[rodeodance]

14. ah, just two folksy chaps having a few laughs at our expense.

[Monkeyman]

2. Yep and the SOB had secert service with him

Only Replugs can get away with that crap

[rurallib]

"and my wallet was missing when I left!"

"But I am sure that George W didn't do it. He's honest. Just ask him."

[OwnedByFerrets]

3. Are there any laws against this? nt

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Yes, the Hatch Act

but of course, the DOJ doesn't enforce the laws for Republicans.

[Straight Shooter]

5. Fast forward to 2010.

Tony Snow leaned over, his head in his hands. "Yeaah, just yesterday I was visiting the withered bush in the Hague ..."

And the crowd yelled back, "We love to hear you say that!!"

[tanyev]

7. Oh, you made me smile.

Thanks.

:)

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. What scum. It'll be fun to see his ass get booted out someday.

[justgamma]

8. He's coming to Iowa.

We've had the pleasure of Cheney, Rove, Pickles, and now Snowjob campaigning in IA 01. They really want this seat.

[Ilsa]

9. “Yesterday,” Mr. Snow declared, “I was in the Oval Office ...

...with the president, and I had to let him win at the Fart Contest."

[TheCowsCameHome]

18. So was Monica - is Tony the new "service" representative?

[C_U_L8R]

10. this is illegal

if we're paying for it

is it not ??

[rpannier]

11. Well...that's the nub of it...

For it to be illegal and treated as such, it would require Congressional oversight.
Something that doesn't exist.

[mitchum]

12. Snow is just a scumbag

[dogfacedboy]

13. While he was alone with Bush did he...

...give Bush a snowjob?

[Demeter]

15. Bush’s Press Secretary Is Raising Money, and Some Eyebrows --NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/us/politics/16snow.html?ref=todayspaper


Bush’s Press Secretary Is Raising Money, and Some Eyebrows

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

ST. CHARLES, Ill., Oct. 15 — Tony Snow draped his lanky frame across a wooden lectern, leaned forward and gazed out at 850 adoring Republicans who had paid $175 apiece to hear him speak. There was a conspiratorial gleam in his eye, as if he was about to reveal some deep inner secret from his new life as the White House press secretary...Live from the suburbs of Chicago — It’s the Tony Snow Outside-the-Beltway Hour! Memo to White House press corps: you can’t catch this show in the briefing room.

In the six months since Mr. Bush enlisted him to resuscitate a White House press operation that was barely breathing, Mr. Snow, a former Fox News television and radio host and a conservative commentator, has reinvented the job with his snappy sound bites and knack for deflecting tough questions with a smile. Now, he is reinventing it yet again, by breaking away from the briefing room to raise money for Republicans, as he did here on Saturday night for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

Mr. Snow, who will make 16 such appearances before Election Day, acknowledged he had entered “terra incognita”; to his knowledge, no other White House press secretary has raised money for political candidates while in the job. But with his star power from television and his conservative credentials, Mr. Snow, unlike his predecessors, is in hot demand.

His booking agent is the White House political shop, run by Karl Rove, the president’s chief strategist. The White House is not keeping track of how much money Mr. Snow raises. His talks — Saturday night’s was a cross between a one-man show and a religious revival — have attracted little scrutiny so far, but they are giving a much-needed boost to a party whose midterm fortunes appear increasingly bleak.

Yet even as the Republican establishment revels in his celebrity — “It’s like Mick Jagger at a rock concert,” Mr. Rove said — Mr. Snow’s extracurricular activities are making some veteran Washington hands, including those with strong Republican ties, deeply uneasy....“The principal job of the press secretary is to present information to reporters, not propaganda,” said David R. Gergen, who served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and also advised President Bill Clinton. “If he is seen as wearing two hats, reporters as well as the public will inevitably wonder: is he speaking to us now as the traditional press secretary, or is he speaking to us as a political partisan?”

[rfranklin]

16. his "principal job is to present information?" Can propaganda be....

classified as "information?"

[wholetruth00]

17. Snow has absolutely no credibility as any kind of journalist let alone

as press secretary.