Minor Thoughts from me to you

Above: That is not Tony Snow. Not Depicted: Fan blowing her hair.

Below: Who cares? Not Depicted: Fan blowing their hair.

So, by now you've undoubtedly noticed (yeah, like fun you have) that radio and television veteran Tony Snow is no longer supplying the U.S. with its daily news from the White House. Mr. Snow vacated the position of White House Press Secretary on September 14th, citing his current level of pay as the reason; he informs us $168,000 per year is too small a stipend on which to raise his family (I'm actually not making this up). Let's all just give thanks real quick Mr. Snow was President Bush's Press Secretary, rather than his Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Leaving all that aside, however, I'm going to miss Mr. Snow. When the personality first took over the position of White House spokesperson, he was a breath of the freshest air, replacing former Press Secretary Scott McClellan's absolutely abominable performances with a friendly and unflappable show. McClellan seemed incapable or too scared of thinking outside of his pre-written script. He'd often repeat its wordage several times over the course of one interview to a plethora of very different questions, as though it were a magical chant that would eventually make all the bad reporters with their mean questions just - go - away. In short, the man was a dull robot.

Not so Mr. Snow: As a major player in news broadcasting, he had no problem dealing with his former brothers and sisters of the press - and what's more, he could keep his sense of humor as he did it.

From the 24th of '06:

MR. SNOW: [Saddam Hussein] willingly accepted the feeding tube today. It will be in, at a minimum, until Thursday. It has to be in for reasons that I don’t understand for 72 hours.

[REPORTER]: I don’t know the specifics, but how does one willingly accept a feeding tube?

MR. SNOW: I guess, you say, do you want a feeding tube? And he says, yes. And they say, okay, we’re going to give you one. This apparently was a consensual feeding tubing.

I wrote over a year ago on this site that "I can’t believe it; reading a press briefing transcript is no longer headache-inducing. Even if the next president is a Democrat, he/she should keep this guy." It's too bad his extreme poverty has led him from us.

That said, onto the much-begged question: how well's his replacement stack up?

Well, she's certainly easier to look at; in fact, judging from any picture you'll see of her, and taking into account her fiery temper, Dana Perino has a real shot of knocking out Ann Coulter as premiere Republican sex symbol*.

She's no stranger to the press office, either; she's been Tony Snow's deputy for a while now, so she's definitely up to snuff on how everything works.

But in front of the cameras?

I've already mentioned Ms. Perino's temper. She definitely gets flustered more easily than Snow ever did, and when she's been given a particularly tough stance by the President to defend, that's no help. Reading a transcript of one of her question-and-answer sessions with reporters, you'll be struck by how glad you are that you didn't watch it on television - because it really is that painful. The press pool and the situation in general practically begin out of hand and only deteriorate as the briefing goes on, until finally Helen, apparently altogether forgetting that she's there to interview Perino, starts passionately editorializing on U.S. torture tactics - at which point what is, again, supposed to be a "Q&A;" session totally devolves into outright argument.

Q How do we know that it's over now? How do we know -- there's testimony, there's still testimony, there's secrecy. Do you think that alleged terrorist is not going to know he might be tortured by the U.S.? Our whole methods are so abominable, horrific. And I think we're really a shame.

MS. PERINO: What about the people who cut off the heads of American soldiers and put them on the video --

Q That's horrible. We're not --

MS. PERINO: Yes, really bad. We don't torture. We get the terrorists here and we interrogate them.

Q The Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11, which you keep bringing up...

Occasionally she allows her panic to result in her saying absolutely baffling things, too.

"Q Well, could you ask [the president his opinion on the bill]? I mean --

MS. PERINO: No, I'm not -- I'll see. If I see him I'll ask him.

You'll ask him "if you see him"? Um, Dana - you're his spokesperson.

On the plus side, Ms. Perino's willingness to fight back against a room full of Democrat reporters shows she has enough confidence and knowledge to speak off-script. That's impressive. And her mean streak isn't wholly unappreciated, either. It's rather endearing when she mutters that it's fine by her "if MoveOn.org and the unions, which seems like a match made in heaven, want to get together and waste another two weeks and lots of money to try to pressure votes, when any reasonable person can look at this and realize that in the House they are not going to get those votes to override the President's veto..."

Dana Perino clearly has personality, then, and more importantly, she obviously believes in what she's doing (something Mr. Snow actually didn't have going for him, having freely admitted at his tenure's start that he and the president didn't see eye to eye on all issues). Still, one must remember: there's a difference between calling the White House's press corps on when it crosses the line and establishing a regularly hostile environment, which is the last thing the president needs right now. Perhaps Ms. Perino errs too far in that very direction and bites off heads more often than she should.

Come to think of it, I notice a worrying propensity for her to interrupt reporters before they even finish their questions. If a reporter is jumping on a soap box or taking too long, asking them to hurry it up is obviously within the press secretary's mandate, but many reporters don't seem to manage to get a full sentence out before she starts answering.

Q Dana, do you know if the President has talked to Senator Domenici since Domenici made the --

MS. PERINO: Yes, I believe that Senator Domenici spoke to the President day before yesterday..

She needs to rein in her eagerness.

All told, I'll give her 2 stars out of 4 - serviceable. Perino's no horror like Mr. McClellan but nowhere near a star like Tony Snow. She hasn't yet found her footing on the stage, consequently appears awkward, not in control, grasping - which some might argue to be an accurate representation of the administration at present, but which is certainly not at any rate a helpful one.

Of course, as President Clinton's first press secretary George Stephanopoulos said during his first press briefing: "[This job's] OK... It's, uh... kinda hard."

That it is. One could go further and say the position of White House Press Secretary, like the position of POTUS itself, has the maddening ability to make some of our country's most capable men and women look like totally incompetent morons.

But at least Ms. Perino knows it. From her first solo press briefing on September 17:

Q On a personal note, what are your goals, your aspirations as Press Secretary?

MS. PERINO: Just to get through this.

*Which you wouldn't think would be that difficult. For my money, I never got what Conservatives saw in Ms. Coulter anyway. She's decently pretty, sure, but a skeleton, which doesn't exactly scream "Va voom!", y'know? Now, your correspondents here at Minorthoughts.com could show you "Va voom!", but the women in our lives have informed us quite bluntly they'd better never appear on here.