The Two Faces of Tony Snow

[UPDATE, 6:15 p.m.: Stephen Spruiell of National Review's Media Blog points out that Snow might in fact have been referring to the following USA Today question: "If you knew that the federal government had your telephone records, how concerned would you be -- very concerned, somewhat concerned, not too concerned, or not concerned at all?" A total of 64 percent of respondents said either "not too concerned" or "not concerned at all."]

As part of his response to Raddatz, Snow used the phrase "I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program."

A reporter later asked him what he meant by that, and Snow mumbled: "Well, when we hug the tar baby -- we could trace that back to American lore."

Snow's use of the term was not entirely ignored by the press, but it was certainly underplayed.

The Crooks and Liars blog helpfully links to a Random House essay on the origin of the phrase, which "achieved currency in the United States in written form in one of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories, a collection of stories based on African-American folklore, narrated by the fictional Uncle Remus, a former slave. In the story 'Tar-Baby,' the character Brer Fox makes a doll out of tar, which he places by the road to entrap his enemy Brer Rabbit. Brer Rabbit talks to the doll, and when it doesn't answer, he hits it, and gets stuck in the tar. The more he struggles with it, the more he is entangled in it.

"This story has led to the figurative use of tar baby in the sense 'an inextricable problem or situation', sometimes with the nuance 'something used to entrap a person'."

But, Random House notes: "The expression tar baby is also used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people (in the U.S. it refers to African-Americans; in New Zealand it refers to Maoris), or among blacks as a term for a particularly dark-skinned person. As a result, some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context."

More of the Same on the Morning Shows

Snow made a round of the morning shows today, and once again misrepresented poll numbers. He seems to have a particular weakness there.

Here's Snow talking to NBC's Katie Couric this morning.

Couric: "Clearly there's a great deal of anxiety among many of the president's supporters. . . . His poll numbers have been consistently trending downwards. How beleaguered is this White House feeling?"

Snow: "Not particularly, Katie, as a matter of fact. You mentioned bad poll numbers, it often happens at about this time in the second term. The real question is, is the president going to lead on the issues that people care about?"

Actually, the real question is: On what is Snow basing his assessment of second terms? As this chart from the Professor Pollkatz blog shows, fellow two-term presidents Clinton and Reagan were doing much better than Bush at this point in their presidencies. Bush's numbers approach only those of President Nixon, who was three months away from resigning at this point in his presidency. This dated Wall Street Journal chart shows more of the same.