from Mike's

 

You consider yourself a student of history? Then why do you not see what has happened in the PAST that has brough this war about and what will happen in the future?  You see it not because of the blinders you so willingly wear. In place of bashing Bush we should be applauding im for going against the UN or do you wish a one world government where this will seem as a mere skirmish? Are you willing to die for what you believe in? That is doubtful because of you blinded rhetoric by equally like blinded people. Do you wish the citizens of the USA to be the victims in OUR streets being innocent victims? Apparently you do. You a student of history? Yet you know very little and have seen even less. Study the Holy Books and their descriptions of the end times and then look at the UN and the European Union with its 2003 constitution or is that constipation. You are looking at a grain of sand in the total picture of past, present, and future history. You are no student of history. You are a student of egocentricism.

I will be so glad when all the tar and feathering is done.  What an exhausting few years it has been.  Perhaps if our administration didn't have to exhaust all of its energy on fruitless accusations it would do a better job on the real stuff.

Just stopping by to let you know we're still stopping by.  Sometimes, life just gets busy.

great site; glad I finally found it on my journey.  I promise, I'll be back! 

Were we watching the same Scott McClellan?  I thought that he was a lousy press secretary.  He had an awful stage presence, and never really seemed in command of his press briefings.  I thought he was much worse than his predecessor, Ari Fleischer.  And at his lowest point, McClellan lied to the press corps about the Valerie Plame leak, unless you believe he was lied to by Rove and Libby; either way, he should have resigned in shame or disgust, respectively.  In his defense, it would be a very difficult job to spin this administration's policies in a positive way. 

MERHABA FROM TURKEY

Of course, you are begging the question.  You talk about the need for truth from the Press Secretary instead of spin designed to distort reality.  Your comment is based on the belief that is what occurs.  A great many of us see things differently.

 

We see Snow as one more person who might raise questions or present things others are less inclined to present.  Then again, as you have mentioned, others who apparently took that tact are no longer with the administration.  Whether their approach is the reason they are gone is open for discussion.  But it certainly raises the question of how long Snow will be in this position.

 

President Clinton, for the record, had something like eight press secretaries during his second term.

Runningpol, thanks for the compliment... I think...

 

I think it's pretty lowbrow to take pot shots at a person that's a principled (one presumes) journalist, a successful, qualified professional, before they've even spent a minute walking the halls.

 

McLellan was amazingly good at keeping the spin in the Administration's direction.  I think you're spot on - the press secretary's job ain't to be a journalist.  It's to spin the message and stay on message and corall the questions in the direction the Administration wants them to go. I don't think I've *ever* seen anyone better at that than McLellan.

 

That's not to say that I support the direction, the spin, or the blatant twisting of truth that occasionally occured under his reign in the White House Press Briefing room.  I'm just in awe of his capability in the capacity that that job requires.

 

Snow has big shoes to fill.  It will be interesting to see what Helen does with him, but there are plenty of other warriors in that room that will be sniffing for blood and testing the limits every possible way - in part, perhaps, because McLellan has been so very good at preventing any real give-and-take from taking place.  The room is hungry for reality instead of reality distortion, and I think there's going to be double the pressure on Snow to turn McLellan's pattern a bit toward realistic acknowledgement of things, instead of rather bald-faced propagandistic posturing.

 

It will be hard for him.  As a (former) journalist, he will I think be presumed to stand on the side of reason and fact, which, under this administration, often is in blatant conflict with the Administration's rather twisted view of reality.

 

If you think I'm being harsh, go read some of McLellan's White House Press Briefing transcripts.  I think I posted a segment on one of them a while back... it was both horrifying and hilarious at the same time.

 

And, it showed just how good McLellan really is.  In the face of revelations from his own administration, in the face of massive disfuncion, he held the line... he kept it together.

 

Good man.  Good luck.  You're a warrior, Scott, even if you're on the Other Side.

Leb - what a principaled and conservative thing to say.  Gasp!

 

What I found truly humorous was that the attempts at bad-mouthing Snow were so directionless.  Detractors were calling him a puppet of the president and pointing out his negative comments about the administration in the same breath.  Talk about wanting it both ways.

 

I personally think someone of Snow's credentials may be exactly what President Bush needs.  First, he has been vocal about those things on which he disagrees with the president.  So nobody can honestly accuse him of just being a mouthpiece (which, oddly enough, the press secretary is supposed to be).  But he has also been an ardent defender of those things he feels the president does well.

 

And he is well aware of the nature of journalists.  I am sort of interested to see the first time he and Helen Thomas go at it.