Through the Looking Glass, Darkly

That Snow was standing there at all was an act of courage. His hair is thinning and his frame is gaunt from his battle with cancer, and he has a port in his chest into which chemotherapy drugs are injected. And Bush has made things increasingly difficult for Snow since the press secretary took the job 15 months ago. The president's popularity has plunged into the 20s, he has lost both houses of Congress, the Iraq war is a debacle, and his vice president has attempted to remove himself from the executive branch. Richard Nixon had been the standard by which presidential failures are measured, but even Nixon was not this low this long.

Snow was late for his briefing yesterday, so one of the cameramen stood on the podium and did an impersonation of the gravelly-voiced spokesman. "We figured the president's ratings were so low at this point that it didn't matter if we commuted his sentence," the impersonator announced.

That may well be true, but the real Snow couldn't come out and say that. Instead, he crossed his ankles behind the lectern and established his opening position: that "the president does not look upon this as granting a favor to anyone."

"Why shouldn't it be thought of as a bestowal of a favor," asked Plante, "when there are dozens of other people who would probably make the same case that their sentences were too heavy and should have been commuted?"

"Well, I'm not sure that there are dozens of others," the spokesman ventured.

Indeed, there aren't dozens. "There are more than 3,000 current petitions for commutation," ABC's Ann Compton informed the spokesman. "Will all 3,000 of those be held to the same standard?"

Snow cut his losses. "I don't know," he demurred.

Ken Herman of Cox News Service tried to get Snow to justify his claim that the Libby commutation was handled by the book. "How could it not be extraordinary to grant something to someone who didn't even ask for it?"

Snow ultimately surrendered to Herman with a shrug.

He got similarly entangled when April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks asked whether the White House planned to apologize for the leaking of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

First, Snow suggested there would be no apology because of the "considerable controversy about the facts." Next, he asserted, without evidence, that Bush had already apologized. Finally, he made Ryan an offer. "I'll apologize," he said. "Done."

"No, it's not," said an unsatisfied Ryan. "That's flippant."