Defending the President’s Defense of Buttercheeks

by sarabeth at 6:00 am on March 21st, 2007 in Bush Man Date, Corruption, General Gonzo, Tony Snow

When you’re the White House Press Secretary, you can end up having some strange conversations with members of the White House press corps. Some of these, fortunately, happen on the record. Here’s what went down at Tony Snow’s press gaggle* on Tuesday:

Q In reviewing the emails, or getting briefed on them, does the President still feel that all of the firings were justified?

MR. SNOW: Yes, he does.

Q Does he feel that there were no politics involved in those decisions?

MR. SNOW: … Let me put it this way: Nobody was removed for reasons of partisan recrimination, nor was anybody removed for purposes of trying to influence the course of ongoing investigations.

If the President really believed the firings were justified, wouldn’t it like totally defuse this wholly unnecessary flap if he just told everyone what the reasons were?

Feel free to choose whatever you choose to believe:
a) Bush believes the firings were justified, he’s just enjoying the spectacle of Buttercheek’s butt being slow-roasted so much, he’s waiting till the mythical “tomorrow“ to clear everything up.
b) Bush believes no such thing, he just winked at Snow and told him that, so Snow could tell the press and, through them, gullible old America.
c) Bush believes no such thing, but he said so to Tony with a straight face, and Tony’s so gullible, he bought it too, poor sucker.
d) He never said any such thing to Tony or anyone else, but why should that stop Tony from making the statement he made?

* That’s code for the morning session at which the geese who constitute the White House press corps assemble to giggle at Tony Snow’s absurdly outrageous lies. That’s right before they go out and report them with a straight face. They used to have a weekly prize for “Biggest gap between bark and bite”, but then someone went: if David Gregory is going to win it every week, then what’s the damn point?

Comments

  1. jamie beth wrote:

    SB - can you or one of the readers clear this up for me?

    As I understand it, it is not uncommon for new administrations, upon entering office, to get rid of political appointees in favor of their own people. So the issue here is that the Bush administration claimed that wasn’t what they were doing, but did it anyway?

    Couldn’t they have just said, “Yes, this was a political issue, we are in politics, aren’t we, and we are allowed to do this?”

    Isn’t the issue here, not what they did, not why they did it, but that they claimed people were being fired for cause (meaning: not being able to do their job) when really they were just being fired so that they could be replaced by Repubs.

    I heard a bit about this theory in the beginning, but somehow the mainstream media has lost sight that this is about lying rather than firing.

    Or am I totally off base?

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 6:13 am

  2. sarabeth wrote:

    One key issue is that it is common to replace U.S. Attorneys only upon entering office. No administration has ever done a purge like this in the middle of their term of office. This includes the beginning of the second term for a two-term administration.

    The other issue is that while these are political appointments in the sense that the President gets to make them when he/she assumes office, the Justice Dept is not supposed to be operated as an instrument of political revenge. It is not supposed to be politicized the way the Bush administration has done. Promotions and firings are not supposed to be based on how well you execute the ruling party’s political agenda.

    The problem here is both the real reasons why they were fired, and the fact that administration officials have consistently lied about the reasons, including under oath. (Of course, they lied because the real reasons were untenable, so you can’t separate the lies from the reasons.)

    Perjury about actions taken in the course of a White House conspiracy to subvert the machinery of justice should — in any reasonable political climate — count as a more serious offense than lying about a blow job.

    I think these guys are simply fucked no matter how much they try to brazen it out.

    I’m glad Bush has chosen to support Gonzo, because that’ll just make it that much worse for Bush when all is said and done.

    If Bush had any sense left, Gonzo would have been awarded a medal Friday evening and put out to pasture.

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 6:57 am

  3. sarabeth wrote:

    short version: what they did is a problem because of why they did it, and that’s why they lied about it, which is now a problem, as well

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 6:59 am

  4. sarabeth wrote:

    As I understand it, it is not uncommon for new administrations, upon entering office, to get rid of political appointees in favor of their own people.

    let’s also remember the fired prosecutors were their own people

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 7:01 am

  5. jamie beth wrote:

    i get everything you said, thanks for the clarification, except for this:

    let’s also remember the fired prosecutors were their own people

    i thought the people getting fired had been hired by clinton admin — am i mis-informed?

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 7:04 am

  6. sarabeth wrote:

    absolutely! they are the guys georgie appointed when he took office in 2000.

    I refer you to:
    one

    As you follow this growing mess, just try and remember, if you can, that the purged prosecutors were handpicked appointees of the Bush administration. These guys who are now making such damaging allegations of high-level government misconduct are not left-leaning terrorist-loving enemy-emboldeners. They are the erstwhile loyal footsoldiers of the Bush administration.

    and two

    When you manage to take loyal Republicans, who have been fired without cause and publicly branded as incompetent and who are loyal nevertheless, when you manage to get guys like them riled up enough that they go ahead and spill the beans they were perfectly willing to sit tight on, you can be said to have a special talent for tripping over your own feet.

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 7:10 am

  7. jamie beth wrote:

    ok, misinformed, or mis-assuming! thanks.

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 7:12 am

  8. sarabeth wrote:

    If you have the stomach for it, here’s georgie himself from his thing yesterday:

    I’m sorry this, frankly, has bubbled to the surface the way it has, for the U.S. attorneys involved. I really am. These are — I put them in there in the first place; they’re decent people. They serve at our pleasure. And yet, now they’re being held up into the scrutiny of all this, and it’s just — what I said in my comments, I meant about them. I appreciated their service, and I’m sorry that the situation has gotten to where it’s got. But that’s Washington, D.C. for you. You know, there’s a lot of politics in this town.

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 7:19 am

  9. sarabeth wrote:

    The world according to George:
    • To be fired by the administration for no good reason? Fine! They serve at our pleasure, after all.
    • To be publicly branded as incompetent by the administration? Fine! They serve at our pleasure, after all.
    • For the firings to be held up to scrutiny (meaning: for people to scrutinize whether they are indeed incompetent as branded)? Unconscionable!

    There’s a lot of politics in this town, all right. What there isn’t is a whole lot of sense. Especially at the top.

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 7:26 am

  10. likwidshoe wrote:

    e) Who cares? Apparently only the media and some partisan twits.

    The prosecutors are appointed at the pleasure of the President. A few of them weren’t doing their jobs properly which is quite obvious with simple examination. It’s not a “purge” and they’re not “their own people”. They had a job to do and now they’re no longer doing that job. It happens every day.

    Comments are subject to moderation, filtering, spell checking, editing, and removal with or without cause or justification. - That’s one hell of a comment policy. Message to readers - my nickname is only tentatively here. Who knows if this comment has been edited or spellchecked.

    Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 11:17 pm

  11. matt wrote:

    guess we should add a line in there about contributing nothing but tired, irrelevant, disproven talking points, eh?

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 4:05 am

  12. jamie beth wrote:

    i’ve just been called a twit. i’m not sure how i feel about that……

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 4:59 am

  13. sarabeth wrote:

    e) Who cares?

    Unfortunately for you and yours, more than enough people apparently do. And very passionately too.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 5:10 am

  14. sarabeth wrote:

    Jamie, you’re in some pretty good company.

    Posted 22 Mar 2007 at 5:11 am

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