It's All About Al-Qaeda Again

Snow repeated his view that "there has been some change in status on the ground."

Martha Raddatz of ABC News took a turn calling Snow on the Qaeda card. This exchange, too, proved inconclusive. CBS Radio's Peter Maer took a final stab at the "systematic al-Qaeda attack" allegation, with a similar result.

While making no headway on the Qaeda question, reporters weren't eager to torture the convalescing press secretary (at least two of the reporters in the audience wore yellow cancer bracelets with Snow's name inscribed on them). They moved on to other subjects.

Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe held up a basket wrapped in colored cellophane. "Mangoes from India arrived, and here is a basket for President Bush," the reporter offered. "My question is: What message does mangoes bring, as far as India-U.S. relations are concerned?"

For one of the few times during the briefing, Snow smiled. "I don't know. It is my first mango-related inquiry," he admitted. It wasn't long before the briefing deteriorated into questions about Marion Barry's income taxes and an entry in Ronald Reagan's diary calling one senator "a pompous no-good fathead."

The White House is well aware that it has had some trouble getting out a coherent message on Iraq. In his speech to the contractors, Bush delivered a less-than-ringing endorsement of the First Amendment, calling freedom of the press "just something that we've all got to live with."

And he implicitly acknowledged his own credibility gap when he admitted that "the best messenger, by the way, for us is David Petraeus," the top U.S. general in Iraq. Petraeus is such a good messenger, in fact, that Bush invoked his name 12 times in the speech. Snow gave Petraeus four shout-outs.

On the Hill, Republicans took a Qaeda cue from the White House. "I can't understand how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, knowing that al-Qaeda is in charge over there, knowing that they want to destroy us, knowing that Osama bin Laden wants to destroy America, that you want to pull out," Rep. Dan Burton (Ind.) railed on the House floor.

If Democrats are intimidated by the Qaeda card, they didn't show it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), an hour before visiting the White House to meet with Bush, gave an Iraq speech on the House floor. "This administration," she said, "should get a clue."