McClellan vs. Snow

I'm not suggesting that there's a feud between Tony Snow and Scott McClellan. Rather, I'm trying to highlight the differences in how each responded to NY Times-created 'scandals'. (H/T RedState.org)

Q Scott, Senator Specter says that the Judiciary Committee is going to make it a high priority to look into this report that the President authorized the NSA to eavesdrop without warrant on people in the United States. And he says that there is no doubt that this is inappropriate. How do you respond to his characterization of what happened?

MR. McClellan: Well, we have a responsibility to work with Congress to do all we can, within the law, to protect the American people. And that means preventing attacks and saving lives. And the President made a commitment that he would do everything within his power and within the law to prevent attacks and save lives. He renewed that commitment more than ever after September 11th. He also made a commitment that we would remain firmly committed to protecting the civil liberties of Americans and upholding our Constitution. He is doing both.[...]

Q Is it your position that legal authority is required --for any surveillance of U.S. citizens by the NSA?

MR. McCLELLAN: This relates to intelligence activities and ongoing intelligence operations that are aimed at saving lives. And there's a reason why we don't get into discussing ongoing intelligence activities, because it could compromise our efforts to prevent attacks from happening.[...]

This is what I used to call part of the "Daily Fetal Position White House Briefing". Simply put, Scott McClellan was the most awful WH press secretary in American history. Now let's compare that 'performance' with Tony Snow's:

Q On terrorist financing, the critics are saying again that this is another indication that the White House is overstepping presidential authority. Why isn't it?

MR. SNOW: Well, number one, I'm glad you asked it. The stories that appeared today were interesting, because all of the potential criticisms were entirely abstract in nature, were not concrete, whereas the benefits were fairly concrete, as were the legal steps.

I'll just read you a few highlights from The New York Times. "The program is a significant departure from typical practice." Well, so was September 11th, and I think everybody acknowledges that in the wake of September 11th it became necessary to try to use every means at our disposal to try to figure out what terrorists were doing and to try to track them down and to stop their activities. The program is, "highly unusual." I refer you to my previous comment about September 11th.

Some officials, "expressed reservations about the program." The reservations are not concrete. It says that, "What they viewed as an urgent temporary measure has become permanent." That doesn't tell me anything. That doesn't list a specific violation of anybody's private rights, it doesn't specify any statute that may have been violated. "The program has been described as exploiting a 'gray area.'" Difficult to figure out what that means. The executives voiced, "early concerns about the program." That was at Swift. Apparently those were resolved.

Q I think what they're saying is that the justification that you all are using for this program is based on the September 11th disaster, and now this program has been going on for five years, but there's no congressional authority for it.

MR. SNOW: And what's interesting here is, for instance, in the -- well, [the Risen piece], it says "It arguably complies with the letter of the law." There was no specific allegation of any breach of responsibility for notifying Congress. In addition, intelligence committees have been notified, and they know all about this.

Let me tell you why this is important. It works. If you read the piece, it works. The program has been tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to al Qaeda...Here's what it has done, this is the concrete part, as opposed to the abstract, potential dangers. It helped capture Hambali, who was responsible for the Bali bombing which killed more than 2,000 people. It's provided information on domestic terror cells. That's a good thing. It helped identify a Brooklyn man convicted on terrorism-related charges last year.

Q Why didn't the President seek congressional authorization for the program?

MR. SNOW: He didn't need to.

Q Why?

MR. SNOW: Because, why would he need it? Under what statute would he need congressional authorization?

Q Well, given all that you're saying, and given the fact that it has been well known publicly that the government has endeavored to cut off the financial spigot, to use your term, why did the administration go to such intense lengths to stop the publication of something that people think is somewhat self-evident?

MR. SNOW: Because the means and methods by which we do it are not.

Q But the existence of this organization is no secret, either.

MR. SNOW: Are you kidding? Are you talking about Swift? When did you know about Swift before?

This exchange shows several things. First off, it shows the cynical nature of the WH press corps. Secondly, the WH press corps thinks that something's illegal or a power grab if they hadn't heard of something before. Thirdly, it's another proof that Tony Snow will consistently make these pompous idiots look positively foolish by arguing with him. He'll win all the debates because he's far more knowledgeable than the WH press corps and because he's a great debater.

Frankly, I welcome contentious debates between Tony and the press corp because the American people will see who's simply mugging for the cameras and who's serving the American people. Watching the elitist WH press corps do battle with Tony reminds me of the old G. Gordon Liddy line that he didn't like getting into a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

---

Posted Monday, June 26, 2006 3:51 PM

May 2006 Posts

No comments.