Snow caught in another lie

June 16, 2007

Tony Snow stuck to the White House line on March 15 when describing the U.S. Attorney purge:

“[W]hat the President has — the Department of Justice has made recommendations, they’ve been approved. And it’s pretty clear that these things are based on performance and not on sort of attempts to do political retaliation, if you will.”

As The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart explained this week, after showing a clip of Snow’s quote, “That was three months ago. Three months later, a dozen subpoenas, six hearings … thousands of released e-mails, it turns out that their performances were actually pretty good. And all signs are now pointing to political motivations. I wonder how the White House is going to reconcile this apparent discrepancy?”

Which leads us to Snow’s spin from this week:

Q: Okay, but at the beginning of this story, the President, you, Dan Bartlett, others said on camera that politics was not involved, this was performance-based.

MR. SNOW: That is something — we have never said that.

Snow does realize that people record these press briefings, right? He understands how easy it is to check when he insists “we have never said that,” doesn’t he?

It’s almost as funny as when White House officials tried to convince reporters that the administration has “never” had “a stay-the-course strategy.”

I can almost understand the Bush gang lying; I just wish they were better at it.

Q: Okay, but at the beginning of this story, the President, you, Dan Bartlett, others said on camera that politics was not involved, this was performance-based.

MR. SNOW: That is something — we have never said that.

It would be a really nice jab if, in the spirit of accuracy, a journalist would rejoin, “Well, I’ve got an mp3 recording right here–would you like to hear your own words?”

  • I can almost understand the Bush gang lying; I just wish they were better at it.

    Why? They never get punished for doing it badly

  • It would be a really nice jab if, in the spirit of accuracy, a journalist would rejoin, “Well, I’ve got an mp3 recording right here–would you like to hear your own words?”

    — Comment by episty

    Exactly! You don’t even need a recording. Just quote the lying bastard! This crap happens again and again, and only shows up in blogs like this one!

    These “journalists” figure that once a news cycle ends, they can’t follow up, it’s not a story anymore. Or if another “reporter” reported it, they can’t. Well, the president’s secretary blatantly — and repeatedly — lying SHOULD be a story of its own!

    What’s the worst that could happen? The reporter wouldn’t be allowed back to press conferences. Fine. So what! If they’d stick together, none of them would be allowed back, and that would be a very big story — and short.

  • “I can almost understand the Bush gang lying; I just wish they were better at it.”

    And, so do they. Which is why they continue to practice, practice, practice.

  • I can almost understand the Bush gang lying; I just wish they were better at it.

    What do you expect from a sub mediocre FOX talk host? I bet they wish they had a better liar spokesmodel spokesman too.

  • “I can almost understand the Bush gang lying; I just wish they were better at it.”

    I have this nagging feeling that there are many, many unknown knowns that we don’t know we don’t know. Those are the ones that scare me. So, aside from the frustration of watching them do it, the worse they are at lying the better off we all are.

  • It’s the old “we create our own reality” thing. If they do something but say they didn’t, we’re all just supposed to believe it never happened. Simple as that.

  • Snow does realize that people record these press briefings, right? He understands how easy it is to check when he insists “we have never said that,” doesn’t he?

    The most absurd aspect of Tony’s answer is that the questioner warned him even as he asked the question:

    the President, you, Dan Bartlett, others said on camera that politics was not involved, this was performance-based.

    And Tony still chose to lie.

  • Its not that Tony Snow is lying, it’s just that the Ministry of Truth has a backlog that’s three months long.

    Think how hard it is for all those Winston Smiths to get Tony’s comments “corrected”.

  • Tony Snow – stupidity so profound it’s surreal.

    There’s lots of room up there for his head now that surgeons have removed his colon.

    At the taxpayer’s expense, of course.

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