The tears of Snow

[kurth]

The tears of Snow
The first TV briefing by Bush's new press secretary was a weepy triumph -- but is it too late for style points to matter?
By Michael Scherer

May 17, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- Tony Snow, the president's new press secretary, wants you to know that he has feelings, he hurts, and he needs a coffee cup to get through his day. Not 30 minutes into his first televised White House press briefing, the man was choking back tears. A television reporter asked why he was wearing a yellow Lance Armstrong bracelet, which flashed each time Snow reached for his paper coffee cup on the podium. "Because I had cancer last year," Snow said. And then he lost his breath. "It's going to sound stupid, and I will be personal here but, um... I'm having my Ed Muskie moment," Snow said, referring to the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate who appeared to have cried on the campaign trail. "I lost my mother due to cancer when I was 17," Snow continued. "The same thing, colon cancer."

Tears had been fatal for candidate Muskie, the Democratic front-runner who never got the nomination after appearing emotionally unstable. But for press secretary Snow, the tears were golden, appearing as anything but forced or phony -- a revolutionary act of sincerity from a discredited pulpet. They were, by all rights, the involuntary expression of a real man who feels blessed to be alive and honored to serve his country in the impossible job of selling George W. Bush, a president with a 32 percent approval rating. "I don't see it as a personal sacrifice to answer a call from the president of the United States to come and serve," said Snow, the 50-year-old native of Ohio, channeling dialogue from Aaron Sorkin's "West Wing." "That's one that still gives me chills. I mean, I go to the end of that lawn, I look back at the pillars and think, 'Man, I'm working here.'"

By the end of the briefing, 40 minutes later, the reviews were raves. Snow had apparently passed his initiation rite. Members of the press corps were thankful for warm blood. As they packed up their notebooks, they were visibly giddy, offering approbations like, "That was A-1" and "It's going to be fun." Even Helen Thomas, the briefing room's matron saint and the press secretary's principal scourge, admitted to being moved by the new guy. "I thought he had a lot of charm," she was overheard saying loudly. "But he didn't answer the questions."

There, of course, is the rub. Snow, true to his name, is no model of transparency. "Al-Qaida doesn't believe in transparency," Snow quipped at one point. In a matter of minutes, he refused to discuss recent reports on phone company data mining; White House relations with Arnold Schwarzenegger; the president's views on contraception; or Karl Rove's plans to resign if indicted...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/17/snow/

[marylanddem]

1. When I heard he cried at the briefing & was applauded

I was struck, once more, at what gullible dumbasses are the White House press corps.

[life_long_dem]

9. I agree, dumbasses; everyone of them.

They can't ask anything that would upset the freepers though. How much extra did snowjob get paid to shed some tears? Tears of $$$$? More of the same- nothing useful. How Rovian and transparent.

[shain from kane]

2. "Golden"? Don't eat the yellow snow. n/t

[grasswire]

3. maybe I'm too cynical...

...but I believe this was calculated. He aimed to cry on the first day. No one could badger a cancer survivor, could they?

[Catherine Vincent]

4. He has a heartwarming story and all but tearing up like that

didn't look right to me. And what idiot reporter asked what the yellow band was for? Like they didn't know it had anything to do with cancer. :eyes:

[Catrina]

5. How lucky and blessed he is that he had the medical coverage that

most likely saved his life. And what an opportunity for the WH press corps (missed of course) to point that out to him and ask why this President and the Republican Party don't feel that all Americans deserve the same access to decent health-care. Surely someone who has been stricken with such a serious illness can understand how important it is have a national healthcare system?

Personally I think it is very inappropriate to introduce one's own personal problems while working. If his own illness did not open his eyes to the millions of Americans who will die or at lose their homes etc. if they become ill as he did, then I don't see the point of bringing it up at all.

[Bushknew]

12. We have a winner

What a missed opportunity

[Marr]

6. The only thing interesting about Tony Snow is

how pathetically overt Fox News' role as the GOP's propaganda outlet has become. A Fox News anchor becomes the WH Press Secretary.

[Philosoraptor]

14. It would have been Rush, but he has some baggage right now.

No one is more the official white house spokesman than big fat Rush.

[bmbmd]

7. Allow me to repost this re: Dan Abrams' professionalism

vs. Snow's emotionalism. Dan is also a cancer survivor.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5952314/

[malaise]

8. Mrs Alito

one more time.

[skypilot]

10. "Because I had cancer last year."

Is THAT what's going on. Forgive me but there have been some gaps in my following of the news these last few days. I'd briefly read something about Snow and cancer and I thought that he was just diagnosed with cancer. I couldn't understand why I wasn't seeing anything in LBN about it, but then I wasn't searching all that doggedly. Now I see what it was about and I have to say that that is the most pathetic and typically Repub thing I've heard in a while. I truly hope that Helen Thomas gets over Snow's "charm" real soon. I'm tired of seeing people get charmed by idiots and psychopaths.

[Fleshdancer]

11. I wish all Americans could receive the same great healthcare he did

I applaud all cancer survivors. Unfortunately my father and grandmother didn't survive so the cancer issue is a sensitive subject for me.

What I would like to see from this is yet another call for universal healthcare. Snow received excellent care and that's wonderful because he SHOULD have excellent care. But so should everyone else.

[Philosoraptor]

13. Whe should can this spokesman crap & let W speak for himself

All the spokesman does is refuse to answer and lie, any chump off the street can do that.

I want to hear it straight from the monkey's mouth.