Snowdumb

Some members of the press are fawning over newly installed White House Press Secretary Tony Snow because he came in wearing his vulnerability on his sleeve, but he's just another overachiever in the Bush Administration, just like El Presidente, but instead of connections and guile to get promoted he had looks, height and some actual experience in his chosen field. I just can't help feeling Snow is something like a Republican contemporary version of the handsome-but-empty newsman played so vulnerably by William Hurt in Broadcast News.

Yesterday Press Secretary Snow fell into the briar patch. I gave him two weeks. But then I thought, hey, if he entertains the Press Corp, they'll help to keep him around. Better than whoever's the next douchebag they cajole into the job. And if Tony Snow feels the good vibes from us, he'll go stronger. Get increasingly engaged. In this completely meaningly sideshow debate we call the White House Press Briefings.

I flexed. Maybe he'll be the star who rides it out to the end. And then...

At the Press briefing today he reveals that, beyond whatever mere coordination some of us had ever expected, it turns out Fox News and the White House are one and the same organization (hat tip as always to Crooks & Liars):

Tony Snow confirms: FOX News is the White House Network

Thank goodness we don't have think about that anymore. Settled.

Now I'm thinking, maybe he makes a gaffe a day, maybe we even wait for it, press corp catching up a bit later, of course, but even then enjoying the daily anticipation and sudden release when he pops that day's boner. One of the complaints has always been how inaccessible they've made el Presidente. We only get one of his gaffes when he has some other big thing for which he's been scheduled and has to talk to the press, but it's right after one of those freak mountain-biking, perch-catching accidents and his face has these funky bruises with bandages hanging off. Now it's like having a handsomer, more idealized version of el Presidente Hombre Blanco doing that surrogate boil-popping (gaffe) every day.

Or maybe Fox's Tony Snow is just Baghdad Bob for the twilight of the Bush Administration. I mean, they're under siege, people are still a little bit scared of them but not nearly as much as a year ago, and whatever information Baghdad Snow gives out is untethered from any real policy, or pathology, that is actually being practiced anywhere else in the building.

It's where the GOP tend to win on entertainment, the theater of politics. We cringe when our guys do something stupid. They act like it's all okay, you only have a problem if you try to point it out, and then they go ahead and promote their dummy because they've got a place they need him to stand. For now.

Stagemanaged.

Nothing of any real importance is likely to ever happen at any Tony Snow press gaggle. You'll get more out of a Paris Hilton newsflash in People.

So even if Silly Tony lasts, I'll just say, "Move along folks, nothing to see here."

Nada.