{"id":7248,"date":"2006-04-26T14:59:54","date_gmt":"2006-04-26T18:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7248"},"modified":"2006-04-26T14:59:54","modified_gmt":"2006-04-26T18:59:54","slug":"shoveling-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/shoveling-snow\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoveling Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most Bush critics seem to be congratulating [tag]Fox News[\/tag]’ [tag]Tony Snow[\/tag] for his new gig as [tag]White House[\/tag] [tag]press secretary[\/tag] by reminding him of the many<\/a>, many<\/a> disparaging remarks he has made about the president from recent years. But I’ve noticed a handful of [tag]Bush[\/tag] allies offering a compelling response<\/a>: if the White House is bringing in an outsider who has criticized the president, then Bush’s dreaded “[tag]bubble[\/tag]” must not be as bad as advertised.<\/p>\n

It’s a relatively fair point. Since Josh Bolten took over as WH Chief of Staff, we’ve seen some relatively high-profile staff changes, but nothing of any real substance and nothing that suggests a change in direction at the White House. Indeed, the “shake-up” has been more about public relations than anything else — with one loyal Bush insider replaced with another<\/a>. A week ago, Josh Marshall remarked<\/a>, “This ‘shake-up’ has yet to see anyone actually penetrate the Bush White House bubble.”<\/p>\n

With this in mind, it suggests that bringing in Tony Snow from FNC is, at a minimum, an example of the White House hiring someone from outside Bush’s inner circle. Granted, Fox News is about as close as you can get to Bush’s bubble without being literally in the West Wing, but nevertheless, the new White House press secretary, literally just five months ago, said, “George Bush has become something of an embarrassment<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I still believe the Bush gang hasn’t popped the bubble yet. They didn’t hire someone to help the White House get back on track — they hired a better public relations guy who’ll try and tell us the White House is back on track.<\/p>\n

Of all people, Ed Helms at The Daily Show recently offered a pretty solid explanation of this political dynamic.<\/p>\n

“They read the polls; they know most American think their policies are failing, so they responded<\/i> — by changing the person who tells us about those failures. It’s quite a bold move…. Every house-cleaning begins by changing the doormat.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, yes, I will concede that Snow is not just another example of moving around a few deckchairs. And, yes, I congratulate Bush and his aides for finally hiring someone who is a) not a Texan; and b) not someone who has loyally stood by Bush’s side for the last six years. But the fundamental problem remains the same — it’s never been about the staff, it’s about the president and a failed agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most Bush critics seem to be congratulating [tag]Fox News[\/tag]’ [tag]Tony Snow[\/tag] for his new gig as [tag]White House[\/tag] [tag]press secretary[\/tag] by reminding him of the many, many disparaging remarks he has made about the president from recent years. But I’ve noticed a handful of [tag]Bush[\/tag] allies offering a compelling response: if the White House is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}