From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Bush
Critic Becomes Spokesman
President Bush introduced the new White House press secretary this morning.
"As a professional journalist, Tony Snow understands the importance of
the relationship between government and those whose job it is to cover the government,"
the president said. "He's going to work hard to provide you with timely
information about my philosophy, my priorities, and the actions we're taking
to implement our agenda."
We met Snow once--at the July 2001 funeral of our friend Ken Smith, deputy editor of the Washington Times, where Snow had hired him 13 years earlier. After the funeral, a bunch of us, including Tony, gathered in the yard of another friend and hoisted beers in Ken's honor.
A few days later, Snow published a column paying a lovely tribute to Ken, who was only 44 when he died of cancer:
As his death drew near, [Ken] became the caretaker for those gathered around. He acquired a dying man's sense of perspective and calm, and shared the wisdom he was collecting. He talked openly about life and death his conversation quickened by curiosity about his future and solicitude for those grieving at his side.
On his final night, he sat with his family. Everybody talked but Ken. He was too weak by then to speak, but he communicated with waves and smiles and squeezes of the hand. He even spilled a few tears, despite severe dehydration. Then, having taken care of that business, he slipped to sleep and walked through the veil of light beyond.
If there is redemption in pain, Ken was long ago redeemed. If there is glory in the love one inspires, Ken has achieved glory worthy of a king. I find myself in the odd position of mourning less than I ought to because I feel so grateful that I got to know him at all. The world doesn't produce as many nice guys as it should. Ditto for people who possess exemplary courage, strength, decency and faith. Ken got 44 years to show the rest of us how to brighten a life and a world.
Tony Snow is also a nice guy, and smart and candid and cheerful as well. The president is fortunate to have him on the team.
One of the oddest responses to the Snow appointment comes from the Center for American Progress, Clintonite John Podesta's think tank. The center's ThinkProgress.org site has a chronicle of Snow quotes critical of George W. Bush. It's not a terribly impressive list: Of 14 quotes, five are from before Bush even became president. Others are taken out of context, for example:
"George Bush has become something of an embarrassment." [11/11/05]
The quote comes from a column on the Virginia governor's election, in which Democrat Tim Kaine beat Republican Jerry Kilgore. Here it is in context:
And don't forget about the Swagger Factor: A party that projects confidence and good cheer will thrash a Chicken Little party any day. Kilgore looked scared. Kaine acted like the cool kid on prom night.
The Swagger Factor has national repercussions because George W. Bush has lost his. His wavering conservatism has become an active concern among Republicans, who wish he would stop cowering under the bed and start fighting back against the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Wilson. The newly passive George Bush has become something of an embarrassment. At the nadir of his campaign, Jerry Kilgore actively dodged having to share a stage with the commander in chief.
Two quotes (shown in boldface below) come from this March 17, 2006, column:
American conservatives have discovered the will-and-morale-sapping properties of political power. A Republican president and a Republican Congress have lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc.
George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion. The president has taken lately to crowing that the Medicare prescription drug benefit will cover 95 percent of all drug expenditures for some of the nation's old and poor, and is telling younger Americans they have a duty to enroll their parents in the new regime of socialized pharmaceuticals.
These are fairly common criticisms on the right, and many of the president's admirers would agree with them. In his role as a pundit--a role he obviously must relinquish until his current assignment ends--Snow has been a thoughtful, friendly critic of the president. It's not as if Bush has hired Helen Thomas, Andrew Sullivan or that crazy former Enron adviser.
Snow's appointment suggests that President Bush is not afraid of constructive criticism. Perhaps he has begun taking to heart Peggy Noonan's advice:
In the end it doesn't matter if White House staffers suddenly listen to critics, to non-pre-vetted policy intellectuals, to questioners, complainers, whiners, Wise Men, if you can find them, and people who actually have something to say. But it does matter if George Bush does.
It matters that he becomes his broadest self and comes to tolerate dissent, argument, ambiguity. That actually would be daring. It would mark not the appearance of change but change, not the appearance of progress but the thing itself.
Somehow we don't think the ThinkProgress guys meant to make a pro-Bush argument when they rehearsed the critical Snow quotes. What point exactly they were trying to make is beyond us.
Abu
Musab al-Schumer
Back in October we
noted an editorial in the New
York Sun on Sen. Chuck Schumer's† favorite metaphor:
A 2003 plan for flexible work schedules instead of overtime? "A dagger to the heart of the middle class," Mr. Schumer said, according to the Associated Press. A 2002 plan by federal regulators to urge Wall Street firms to establish backup facilities outside New York City? A "dagger pointed at the heart of New York," Mr. Schumer said, according to the Daily News. High gas prices? "A dagger at the heart of our economy," Mr. Schumer said in 2000, according to the New York Times. A unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood would be "a dagger through the heart of the peace process," Mr. Schumer said in 2000, according to the Agence France Presse.
There were lots more examples, both in that editorial and in the ensuing weeks. Here's the latest:
Any government which is formed in Iraq now--whether by Shiites or Zionist Kurds, or those who are dubbed Sunnis--would only be a stooge. They are a poisoned dagger in the heart of the Muslim nation.
OK, OK, that isn't Schumer. It's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al Qaeda in Iraq*. Do they share a speechwriter?
† A dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.
* Or, as the Democrats call it, al Qaeda Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq in Iraq Which Has Nothing to Do With al Qaeda.
Squaring
the Circle
Blogger Tom Maguire says he's "trapped" in a "circle of logic."
He quotes an online chat with the Washington Post's Dafna Linzer in which she
fields a question about Mary McCarthy's firing from the CIA over alleged leaking
of secret information:
Tokyo, Japan: Hello, Ms. Linzer-You said earlier "we don't know exactly what was said and to whom." That isn't entirely correct. Dana Priest would know the nature of her contacts with McCarthy, and Dana Priest is a Washington Post reporter. Why can't she just tell us? After all, she seems to feel comfortable exposing secrets. What are the ethics on this?
Dafna Linzer: Hi, you're up late. The compact reporters enter into with sources for information that they wouldn't get otherwise is often one of confidentiality, especially on issues of national security. That is the pact that Dana entered into with her sources.
Says Maguire:
But... but... if Ms. McCarthy was *not* a source for Dana Priest, then there is no compact, yes? Why can't Ms. Priest simply say, "Although I will never discuss my sources, I will occasionally discuss my non-sources; in this case, Mary McCarthy was not a source to me in my Pulitzer Prize winning secret prison reporting."
Actually, the answer is fairly simple. If a reporter is willing to say "X is not my source," then his refusal to say the same of Y fingers Y as the source.
Teresa
Needs to Get Him on a Diet
"Body Found in Kerry Was That of Missing Antrim Man"--headline, Irish
Examiner, April 25
They'd
Rather Have Gravy and Cranberry Sauce
"Greeks, Cypriots Slam Rice Comments on Turkey"--headline, Reuters,
April 26
Help
Wanted
"Iowa Deputies Seek Serial Vomit Dumper"--headline, Associated Press,
April 25
Words
to Live By
"Reporting News Good, Promoting Deviants Bad"--headline, Daily Herald
(Provo, Utah), April 23
What
Would We Make Without Experts?
"Experts Make Flatulence-Free Bean"--headline, BBC Web site, April 25
What
Would We Do Without First Indians?
"First Indian Skis to North Pole, Says It's Freezing"--headline, Agence
France-Presse, April 26
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Milwaukee County Zoo Ostrich Dies"--headline, WISN-TV
Web site (Milwaukee), April 24
- "French Experts Find No Pesticides in Georgian Wines"--headline,
Prime
News Agency, April 25
- "Hen Mallard Makes Nest at Hardware Store"--headline, Associated
Press, April 24
- "Man Told No When He Orders Philly Cheese Steak"--headline, Associated
Press, April 24
- "Rolling Stone Keyboardist to Read to Kids"--headline, Associated
Press, April 25
- "Feds Decide Not to List Rare Salamanders"--headline, Associated
Press, April 25
- "Cicero's Ex-Boss Bored in Prison"--headline, Chicago Tribune, April 26
Miranda
v. Academia
The Harvard Crimson has the funniest comment we've seen yet on the infamous
anti-Israel screed by a pair of "realist" professors. It comes from
Harvard's departing president, Larry Summers, who spoke at the law school yesterday:
Several [students] asked about the paper, published by outgoing Kennedy School of Government Academic Dean Stephen M. Walt and the University of Chicago's John J. Mearsheimer, arguing that a pro-Israel lobby controls U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East.
Summers said that it would be inappropriate for a university president to comment on professors' research, but that universities must protect academic freedom and that professors should be open to criticism.
When asked by [Alan] Dershowitz if professors should be compelled to debate their critics, Summers said that part of "the principle of academic freedom is the right to remain silent."
Book 'em, Dano!
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Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: To media partisans, some leaks are more equal than others.
- Jay Cost (from RealClearPolitics): Conventional wisdom holds the House will switch parties and the Senate won't. That's never happened.
- Pete du Pont: How Republicans can break the spending habit.
