Quick overview…Snow job?…
So Tony Snow, a FOX News anchor, might become the next White House press secretary. What does this mean?
Wait and see. But while you wait, you might want to re-visit Jay Rosen’s idea of Rollback (see also “The Jerk at the Podium“):
This White House doesn’t settle for managing the news–what used to be called “feeding the beast”–because it has a larger aim: to roll back the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country, but also less of a wild card in fighting enemies of the state in the permanent war on terror.
“Stonewall” McClellan will be a hard act to follow if, as I have suggested, he was the perfect press secretary for a certain (non)communicative purpose: to maximize obfuscation and stay on message no matter what.
But what if David Gergen is right:
Tony Snow does have the leverage that neither of his predecessors would have had. And that is, if he walks out on them because they’re not open enough, it would be hugely devastating to the administration, so, that he, unlike Scott McClellan, can go in and say, gentlemen, this isn’t good. The press has a legitimate need here. We have got to give it to them. And they know that the moment he walks out the door and disgusted, if they are really totally closed or they lie or whatever, that is a bleak, bleak day at the White House. His predecessors never had that leverage.
That leverage Gergen speaks of is dependent upon the administration’s belief that the press is an important player in civic life. And if that’s not true?
A highlight of Rosen’s “Jerk” post is the idea from the comments section that the press should cover the rhetoric of politics. I’ve been making this same claim for a while now: The rhetorical features of a political text are reportable facts that do not require the intervention of an “expert” source.
The Rhetorica canon on rhetoric as a reportable fact:
Question begging…
Illogic…
Only two years late!…
Reportable facts…
UPDATE (1:15 p.m.): Snow has demands, according to Hotline On Call:
Fox Newser Tony Snow is said by Republicans familiar with the negotiations to have asked for guaranteed access to the president’s ear and to an unusually large degree of latitude to reconfigure the WH press operation. That pleases the new chief of staff, who wants to relegitimize the press podium in the Brady briefing room.
But Snow, not content to be a herald, also wants near-complete control over what he says from the podium, be it bromides, platitudes or substance. That would encroach on the broad portfolio of responsibilities that Dan Bartlett claims for himself.
Maybe something interesting is afoot. What does it mean to “relegitimize the press podium”? Was it illegitimate before? How/when did it get that way? Who benefited and who did not? Does rollback have natural limitations within the context of an open public sphere in a democratic republic?
