Tony Snow stepping down

Tony Snow to step down - Mike Allen - Politico.com

The spokesman, who came to the White House from Fox News, used his talk-show host's glibness and thick hide to fend off questions that grew increasingly hostile over his 16 months in the job.

I still don't like him, but I'm glad that he appears to be winning his battle with cancer.

Here's more on my ranting and railing against Tony Snow, aka the "Snow Jobber."

Here's the really scary thing: Dana Perino is taking over. She's, like, 14 years old and cannot divert, obfuscate, confuse, or deflect like Snow Job. Not even sure she can drive. But she's cute, so I guess that makes her qualified.

Tony Snow on Executive Privilege

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com came up with this juicy piece of literature on the topic of "Executive Privilege," that interesting term invoked most often when a president is about to have his shorts pulled off in public (and, by the way, he forgot his underwear):

Evidently, [the President] wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

One gets the impression that [the President] values [his] survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in [the President] will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law.

Now, to whom do you think that Mr Tony Snow was referring? Bush Administration Press Secretary Tony Snow wrote the above in an op-ed titled "Executive Privilege is a Dodge" in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on March 29, 1998, obviously before he was Press Secretary.

[The President], in this case, was Mr Bill Clinton. But didn't it sound like he was talking about any President who's just lost his shorts in a strip poker game?

White House misused RNC emails and blames Clinton

The Raw Story | White House may have committed 'extensive' violations of Records Act, says Oversight Committee



When does one simply stop caring for his or her country and give up? So many violations. So many ethical breaches. So many morally questionable acts. By the country we love.



When will it stop? Hint: Not January 20, 2009. All governments are corrupt. Until the courts stymie the ransacking of our democracy by the Executive branch, not a damned thing will change for the better, only for the worse.



Get this:

White House spokesman Tony Snow in his daily press briefing said that White House e-mail use was based on Clinton administration policy.

"Those e-mail accounts were set up on a model based on the prior administration which had done it the same way in order to avoid Hatch Act violations," he noted. "Any e-mails sent to or received from a White House e-mail account is automatically archived, and the RNC has had an e-mail preservation policy for White House staffers as well. We should have been through this, I'm not sure exactly when the start-date was, we'll just have to see how Counsel's office responds to Rep. Waxman's request."

Can I tell you how much I can't stand Tony Snow and his double-speaking, backstabbing, unaccountable-for-anything stances on all matters?



I think I just did.



It's amazing he can look in the mirror each day and not want to shoot himself. Or maybe there are no mirrors in his house. At best, they're all made of frosted glass.

Tony Snow returns to work

Like I said before, I don't like his politics, but I don't wish cancer on anyone (or any other disease). I only wish him and his party political defeat.

Best of luck Mr. Snow. I genuinely hope that you beat this thing once and for all.

White House press secretary Snow returns to work - washingtonpost.com

White House spokesman Tony Snow: Cancer

Personally, I think the guy's a hack of a spokesman and a partisan to the nth degree. But all of us are human and bring some humanness to the world. Hopefully, Tony can survive his bout with cancer and come out a stronger, smarter, and more passionate man.

Good luck, Mr Snow!

Entire Bush administration made of pussies

White House: Clinton shameless in Libby comments - CNN.com

I'm the last guy to -- pardon the pun -- pardon Bill Clinton for his, um, pardons: I think he went nuts in granting felons and miscreants pardons during his last days.

But Tony Snow is the pussy spokesman for the biggest pussy ever in the White House. These guys always -- ALWAYS -- point to Clinton as the poster child for everything that they do that is questioned.

"Clinton did it." The standard response. These guys not only have no morals, ethics, or collective conscience, they also are just like those little pricks in school who shout at you when you're a hundred yards away, and then stand behind the big bully (Dick Cheney) when close by.

I think Cheney would die of a heart attack if anyone ever stood up to him. Hey, there's an idea! Why doesn't somebody stand up to Dick?

I'm not the only guy who noticed this diversionary tactic away from the issue.

Heroes?

Heroes. It's an overused word, applicable to everything from sports stars to teachers to guys in costumes who save lives in the movies to soldiers. Today, there's been a flap between John Kerry (and no doubt all Democrats) and the White House over Kerry's apparent (to Bush Administration) slight on the soldiers fighting in Iraq. To note, Kerry, speaking at a college, said that people who cannot navigate the country's education system "get stuck in Iraq."

To which I would agree. Back when I was about to enter college, I kept asking myself "Why?" With all the armed forces recruiters on campus and calling me on the phone, I felt like I was needed. Plus, I could get money to go to college in a few years, have relevant experience, see the world, get in shape, and serve my country.

But I went to college and got a degree.

But this isn't the point. Tony Snow (aka "Mr Snowjob") shot back at Kerry's remark:

"Senator Kerry not only owes an apology to those who are serving, but also to the families of those who've given their lives in this."

Kerry shot back, saying he was criticizing George Bush, not the "heroes serving in Iraq."

BULLSHIT. He meant what he said. If you don't get an education, one of a few alternatives a youngster has is to enlist. The bullshit part is the line about "heroes."

Is it heroic to do your job? I mean, most of the "kids" serving in the war signed up for the reasons I contemplated. They didn't aim to be heroes. Nor are most of them heroes now. Who have they saved? Allowing yourself to be put in harm's way by others is kind of cowardly, isn't it? Especially if you think the war is wrong, which apparently a lot of soldiers believe. So, why not stand up for your beliefs? What's so heroic about not doing so?

Don't get me wrong. Our men and women serving in Iraq are brave souls, due our respect for surviving under extreme circumstances. But are they heroes?

No. A guy who jumps in front of a bus in order to move a child out of harm's way is a hero.

A woman who puts her neck on the line to save hundreds of others without a voice, she's a hero.

A boy who defies the odds of winning the battle against cancer and becomes an inspiration to other children suffering from disease. He's a hero.

Heroes save others, either directly or indirectly. Martin Luther King was a hero. Men and women who dropped what they were doing to help in New Orleans: They are heroes.

Soldiers "doing their jobs" are not necessarily heroes. They might be under circumstances that call for it, but their presence in the face of danger doesn't make them heroes. It's what you do in the face of danger that makes you a hero.

Sorry. Heroes are few and far between. We mustn't use the term lightly.

Stonewalling Bush

It seems as though our president has taken stonewalling to a new high (or low, as the case may be). There's nothing that comes out of this administration that is, in the words of the president, "transparent." Everything is cloaked in secrecy, on a need-to-know basis.

I, for one, am sick and tired of this administration's skirting the law, flouting its power, and forestalling any and all oversight. Tony Snow said that the Congress had no constitutional right to oversight of the Executive branch. I'm no constitutional scholar, but I think Congress has a bitch here. Seems to me that the founding fathers, so often cited as if they're gods by this administration, intended that there by (grade school civics don't fail me now)...checks and balances.

Our whole government is predicated on this concept of checks and balances: No one branch can impose its will or bully its way into doing something. But President Bush and "Alberto" disagree. They believe that George indeed should be King.

The linked story is just one of many examples of how this administration stonewalls its overseers.

Subpoenas issued in fired prosecutors probe - Politics - MSNBC.com

Hastert, GOP coverup of Foley affair

DailyKos has this to say about the GOP coverup of the Foley affair:

You know, this is a very basic issue. The House leadership knew about -- and covered up for -- a child sex predator inside their very building. There's no goddamn "spin" that's going to make that go away. And in talking with other parents, I have to tell you -- anyone who is a parent is out for blood on this one. We can "disagree" over whether or not America should torture prisoners. We can "dispute" whether or not the President should be allowed to classify American citizens as "terrorists" based only on his own say-so, and lock them away without evidence or trial. We can "argue" over whether or not Tom DeLay's money laundering and the money laundering that has a goodly portion of the rest of the Republican House locked in ongoing scandal and indictment was only accidentally criminal, or astonishingly criminal.

But in the end, at the end of it all, you don't FUCKING COVER UP FOR A CHILD SEX PREDATOR. No. Matter. What.

What part of that do these people still not understand? I'm straight-up serious, here -- how do you get to the point where you are that depraved, that you think a man soliciting sexual information and meetings from sixteen year old kids over the internet -- and meeting them in person -- is "just another scandal"? Tony Snow? Brit Hume? Any of you folks, you wanna take that one on?

Hastert had better figure out damn quick that the rest of the country isn't messing around on this one. I don't know exactly how he got his GOP-style version of "morality" so twisted and decomposed that even this doesn't faze him, but he had better at least have the common sense to stand the hell out of the way.

Sounds about 100% right.

Bush pulls the fear card again

It's that time of the year again, when President Bush pulls out the "I give a shit" speech about America, freedom, security, and lower taxes (not in order of importance, by the way). Bush is pulling the fear card, telling us that "We're at war." I think everything the president says is for his own benefit, to remind himself of what he's saying.

No kidding, Duh-bya. We're in a war you started (and that you cannot seem to finish). We're still not safe from terrorists because you waited too long to go after bin Laden and then you forgot all about him, even though you called for his capture "dead or alive." Thanks for the bon Jovi reference. They're from Jersey, pretty close to Ground Zero.

This even-numbered "I give a shit" year is especially important because it's what is called an "election year." This means some bigshots in Washington are getting antsy about getting ousted. Never fear, the way the districts have been rigged, there isn't much hope for a Democrat revolution. Oh, sure, the Repuglicans will lose a few seats, but nothing to worry about. After all, if there's one thing the Democrats know how to do well, it's losing.

One of my favorite quotes:

"It's not going to happen," spokesman Tony Snow said in a lengthy rebuttal to the Democratic letter (about firing Donald Rumsfeld). "Creating Don Rumsfeld as a bogeyman may make for good politics but would make for very lousy strategy at this time."

Yep, this administration is certainly the experts when it comes to lousy strategy. As they say, "It takes one to know one." Just look at anything they've done. Is anything better now than before they went and changed it?