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Snow: Pakistan Doing A "Certain Amount of Things"
As we noted earlier, this morning's New York Times brought word that the administration (with Vice President Cheney as the messenger) was finally putting the screws to Pakistani Pervez Musharraf, using the Democratic Congress as leverage. If Musharraf didn't start showing results against Al Qaeda, then the Dems might just go ahead and cut aid to Pakistan.
A "senior administration official" told the Times that now "the only thing that matters is results."
But the administration is apparently unwilling to broadcast that tough message publicly, as was made apparent during Tony Snow's press briefing today.
On his first question about the Times article, whether Musharraf was "keeping his commitments" of going after Al Qaeda, Snow cautioned that it's "not something where [Musharraf] lays out goals and timetables."
But when another journalist tried to nail Snow down, he went into a Q&A tailspin that seemed like it would never end, Snow repeatedly reformulating reporters' questions into the questions that he would prefer to answer, and the reporter straightening the question out to its original form.
From the briefing transcript (not yet available online):
Q Does the President feel that President Musharraf has been aggressive enough in living up to the commitments that he made?MR. SNOW: Again, I think -- Jim, you act as if -- a question like that seems to presume that everything is predictable; you do a certain amount of things, and you'll get a predictable result. You're dealing with an unpredictable enemy. President Musharraf certainly has been responding to a changing threat and to changing conditions, and we are going to support him on that. Do we --
Q But the question --
MR. SNOW: No, the question -- I'm sorry, then I'll let you go back at me. I think the appropriate question is, is he doing what he can, is he committed to winning? The answer is, yes.
Q The question is, is the President satisfied?
MR. SNOW: The President -- as long as you have terrorists at large in the world, the President is not going to be satisfied. And I daresay President Musharraf is not satisfied.
Q The question is, Dick Cheney --
MR. SNOW: What you're trying to do -- I'm not going to answer a question --
Q I have a very simple question; there's no trick question to this. The Vice President was in Pakistan, he was meeting with President Musharraf. There are media reports that he was saying, expressing the administration's dissatisfaction with the way that President Musharraf has conducted incursions or overseen the border regions. Is that the message that the Vice President was delivering?
MR. SNOW: Again, I'm not going to try to convey precisely what the Vice President said. The President made it clear a couple of weeks ago, President Musharraf is committed to winning this, and we are committed to working with him in this war on terror. We're not going to be -- we're often asked to give out report cards on other heads of state. I'm not going to play.
Q But you give out report cards on Mr. Maliki all the time.
MR. SNOW: Well, no, quite often you guys will ask us, are you satisfied with X, Y, and Z, and we talk about how we're working with them.
Q Can you talk about the aid -- part of the Vice President's message, I know it was just referred to in David's question, about the potential for aid being cut off by the U.S. to Pakistan?
MR. SNOW: No, because what you're speculating about is congressional action. I'm not going to talk about that.
Comments (31)
Legalized wrote on February 26, 2007 4:21 PM:Of course, if you were interested in saving blog space the story could simply read:
Reporter: Question on topic X.
Snow: Lied; answered question invented by him, pertaining to topic Z.
The end.
JoshB wrote on February 26, 2007 4:22 PM:It's the o-press-ed pool now...
I'm so sick of this "we're all for winning" schtick.
The press should run that headline everytime they say it.
Bush for Winning.
Says it all doesn't it?
moderators wrote on February 26, 2007 5:00 PM:what we need are a group of paintball gun weilding trigger happy asses in one corner gaguing the mood fo the reporters. if they (the reporters) arent happy about the answer they get to shoot snow. if the paintball gunners aren't happy with snw they get to shootsnow. might make for more interesting news conferences.
how stupid are reporters anyway. why don't they just call him a dodging asshole and ask for a different spokesperson...something with a spine.
AK wrote on February 26, 2007 5:04 PM:Almost makes you miss Ari. Almost.
markg8 wrote on February 26, 2007 5:11 PM:When does Tony Snow realize he's destroying any future he hopes to have in DC, in the media, even with FOX by shilling for these guys?
He needs a nickname like Baghdad Bob. Something like Phony Tony Snow. Of Tony Snowjob.
John Bertsch wrote on February 26, 2007 5:21 PM:My suggestion is simple: Every G D new person should not attend Snow's Snow jobs for 5 days. Let that egotistical p..k talk to himself.
JohnW wrote on February 26, 2007 5:45 PM:White House Bulletin: The White House Press Corps was disbanded today; from this day forward, George Bush will sit in the audience alone and ask questions of TONY SNOW
EH wrote on February 26, 2007 5:54 PM:Nice one, JoshB.
"Winning '08!"
Not sure who the running mate is there, but it's a start.
Bri wrote on February 26, 2007 6:02 PM:Hey Moderators, regarding that comment about Ari: I was thinking about Ari too reading the transcript and I couldn't help "speculating" about why their performance before the press has been on such a downward slide since Ari. (I don't think anyone would argue that Ari was any less opaque, but his evasions were far more polished.) Is it because:
- given the lost cause of the Bush legacy, they can't get any more A-teamers to serve as Press Secretary?
Mcboo wrote on February 26, 2007 6:13 PM:- Has the admin more or less given up supporting the Secretary?
- Has the administration so departed from reality and reason that there is simply no longer any way to make it smell good?
Why can politicians and their mouthpieces not answer a single damned question? It's maddening. Why are we having press conferences at all? How can our government get away with saying "I'm not going to answer that..."? It's preposterous.
We need the ability to literally yank any politician from office if he/she can not or will not give a DIRECT answer to a DIRECT question. Screw them. Run them out of town on a rail! We as a people need to start demanding some freaking respect and responsibility from these clowns or we should toss them out on their cans and fast. If we need some new laws or systems in place to do it, then so be it... but I for one have had enough. And screw waiting until "the next election cycle", I want to toss these tools out into the street within days of this sort of thing. If they don't want to tell the American people WTF they're doing then they shouldn't be doing it!
Obnox wrote on February 26, 2007 6:54 PM:These aren't even the right questions. Let's try some better ones:
Why has the administration waited 5-1/2 years to demand results from Pakistan?
Why does it take the threat of oversight from a Democratic congress to make the administration get serious about combating Al Qaeda?
Why is the administration so willing to coddle a dictator if he doesn't even live up to expectations?
These monkeys in the press pool - with a couple of notable exceptions - are not journalists. They're just as fake as the phony press secretary for our phony government.
George E. Lowe wrote on February 26, 2007 7:17 PM:Hi, The White Press "Corpse" has finally decided that THEIR Reputation & THEIR Legacy is also now at stake. Recall what President Bush told the NATION/WORLD when he launched his PERSONAL "Expedition to Sicily" in his Aggressive PREVENTIVE WAR of CHOICE vs Iraq on 19 March 2003: "My fellow citizens. At this hour American & Coalition forces are in the early stages of military operation to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defenda the world from grave danger."
Rusty Austin wrote on February 26, 2007 7:24 PM:Well, by & large the MSM [White House Press Corps]--not only believed the President's INFLATED claims/lies, but many abetted the Bush Administration's two main casus belli: Saddam's WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION & Saddam's "links" to the largely Saudi terrorists of 09-11-01.
Isn't it about time that some REPORTERS & THEIR CORPORATE MASTERS to speak "TRUTH to POWER"? It is already "Two Minutes till Midnight" re Bush/Cheney impending attacks on Iran. Very worried in Stuart, FL George E. Lowe
If any of those "reporters" had an ounce of self respect, they would simply stop attending. But, they don't.
Penney wrote on February 26, 2007 7:40 PM:Here would be my question:
What on earth makes anyone think V.P. Cheney could get the current Democratic Congress to do anything he said? Talk about an empty threat!
Owen wrote on February 26, 2007 7:53 PM:Is America really losing two wars now?
It's hard to blame Musharaff for not doing what America wouldn't do. He can't trust his own intelligence services or much of his army, and he has to balance that with doing America's bidding.
It's unfortunate that Bush, Cheney and the Dems agree that humiliating Musharaff is a good idea right now. We'll be lucky if Pakistan isn't run by jihadis in 5 years, nukes and all.
Fonzie wrote on February 26, 2007 8:28 PM:My question would be as follows:
Mr Snow.....
On 9/11, America was attacked by Sunni fundamentalists.
In direct response to this horrific attack Saddam Hussein was then deposed in order to prevent another attack.
With SH deposed, pro-Iranian Shiite fundamentalists have seized the reins of power in Iraq thereby fulfilling their decades old dream of transforming a `secular' Iraq into a fundamentalist Shiite republic.
Is their seizing of the reins of power an appropriate response to the horrific attacks of 9/11?
[Keywords: Iraq, Islamic fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalism, Shiite fundamentalists, Al Sadr, Al-Maliki, Al-Hakim, Bayan Jabr, Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI, Al Dawa, Death Squads]
Tom Careu wrote on February 26, 2007 11:23 PM:No ujse asking Tonly Snow qustions. He was hired to ignore the real ones.
Instead, ask Gorge Bush -- wheneve, wheever, and often --
How is it that you continue to follow the advice you are receiving, when, to date, every substantive action they have proposed, and you have followed, has been a dismal failure?
If you have not been following their advice, why not?
Tom Carey wrote on February 26, 2007 11:26 PM:Errata:
Tony not Tonly
Scott Lynch wrote on February 27, 2007 12:35 PM:wherever, not wheever
Carey, not Careu
American version of Bagdad Bob - Mr. Snow
Richard L. Adlof wrote on February 28, 2007 10:22 AM:I miss Scott looking like a beaten puppy and squirming all the time.
Crony McSnowjob is too sharmy.
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