Tony Snow’s Big OOPS
Uh, oh. Tony Snow — whose ascension as White House press secretary seemed to us to be an improvement (a professional journalist, someone who could speak in declarative sentences, someone who would be candid but choose his words carefully)has committed the cardinal sin:
He has made life HARDER for his boss(es) due to his poor choice of words. Either they were a poor choice of words or they were the correct choice of words and the heat has gotten too much so the White House is backing away from them..
But either way this is a bad sign that Tony Snow may be morphing into Tony Shmo:
White House press secretary Tony Snow apologized on Monday for suggesting that President Bush believed stem-cell research amounted to “murder,” saying he was “overstating the president’s position.”
“He would not use that term,” Snow told reporters.
At issue was Snow’s comment last Wednesday defending Bush’s veto of legislation to expand federally financed research on stem cells obtained from unwanted embryos.
“The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research it’s inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He’s one of them,” Snow said at the time.
Snow said Monday that the president remains opposed to using federal funds for such research because it involves “a destruction of human life.”
Snow’s characterization became an issue on Sunday for White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who struggled on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to answer whether Bush agreed with his spokesman that destruction of unwanted fertilized embryos was tantamount to murder?
“The president thinks that that embryo, that fertilized embryo, is a human life that deserves protection,” Bolten said. “I haven’t spoken to him about the use of particular terminology,” Bolten said.
Said Snow on Monday: “I overstepped my brief there, and so I created a little trouble for Josh Bolten in the interview. And I feel bad about it.”
The problem for Snow and the White House: assuming that his statement is correct and not mere spin due to getting bad reaction (most likely from furious and appalled Republicans running for re-election: suggesting Nancy Reagan is in favor of murder doesn’t play well in certain GOP circles), the damage is DONE. When comments like these come out they create a big stir, get widespread press circulation, and then the retraction gets less publicity. Plus, a certain segment (probably quite large) won’t believe any retraction, anyway.
What’s most interesting in the present political culture is where this leaves the people who parrot lockstep whatever White House line is presented. What about talk show hosts who heard Snow and then suggested, why yes, it is almost murder? Do they maintain their (the original White House) position on this or try to spin it as well?
Snow better be on a learning curve or he could create problems for his boss. It seems as if in this case he slipped into talkshowhost-speak versus press-secretary speak. He always needs to remember that in his new job he is not just preaching to the choir.
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