Ever see that program on the Game Show Network (no comments please) called "Friend or Foe"? Let's play my version.
Who made the following statement, friend or foe?
"Bush's advisers have swaddled their guy in so many cloying alliterations -- he's a 'compassionate conservative' and a 'reformer with results' -- that he has become a living cartoon." (08/00)
How about this one?
"The newly passive George Bush has become something of an embarrassment." (11/05)
Last one, friend or foe?
"No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives." (9/05)
Answer to all of the above: Tony Snow, the new White House spokesman. With a spokesman like that, who needs a press corps? Just kidding.
The truth is, Bush administration officials are enjoying this little kerfuffle over Snow's statements. They hope his pointed words against President Bush (and believe me, they were few and far between in a voluminous body of work as a writer and pundit) will run against the widespread notion that the White House is intellectually inbred.
For my TV piece on this subject, I talked to a lot of people about Snow's new role. None of them -- Democrats or Republicans -- think Snow's paper trail has much staying power. They believe events and issues will quickly overtake the google searching for Snow's old statements.
The truth is, if you're a columnist who toes the party line 100 percent of the time, people might as well just tune into the White House spokesman every day. Oh wait.