A Whole New War

"In general, Snow has brought fresh perspective to a press operation that was stuck in a rut of recycled responses and predictable dodges, say current and former Bush aides. But the change has been more atmosphere than substance. While Snow has added a confident and often humorous touch to briefings and granted some reporters greater access to senior officials, the Bush White House remains tightly controlled and its top members mostly off-limits."

A Case Study

It was a rare, direct answer Snow gave at a briefing last week . And it cried out for a little fact-checking.

"Q Just one final one on this. Why shouldn't the President be the one to mount an aggressive diplomacy, pick up the phone, call Assad of Syria and say, put an end to this, and start negotiating directly with the Syrians?

"MR. SNOW: Because the track record stinks. I don't know if you remember all the old pictures of diplomats in the Reagan years going -- in the Carter, Reagan, and maybe even the early Bush years, the first Bush administration -- who knows, Clinton may have done it, too -- sitting around there drinking tea with Hafez al-Assad, the father, having to sit there for five, six, ten hours, listening to polite but long discourses on greater Syria, and at the end of that, having gotten nothing.

"There is absolutely no reason to assume, based on the track record, that negotiations and conversations with the Syrians would yield any fruit. And as a consequence, rather than doing that, I think it is incumbent on the United States to use whatever moral force and moral power it has, and also let allies do the talking."

But has diplomacy with Syria always had such stinky results?

Cragg Hines writes in his Houston Chronicle opinion column today: "Bush-41 and Clinton held important, face-to-face meetings with President Hafez Assad, father of current President Bashar Assad, in Geneva.

"The November 1990 Bush-Assad meeting was part of the effort that kept Syria onside during the first Persian Gulf war.

" 'It is amazing,' retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who was the earlier President Bush's national security adviser, said Tuesday of Snow's comments. 'Certainly he's wrong about Bush-41.'

"Scowcroft said that although he was 'no fan' of Hafez Assad, 'it's a fact' that Syria joined the anti-Saddam coalition. 'He did put troops on the (Syria-Iraq) border.'

"The January 1994 Clinton-Assad meeting was part of the Democrat's effort that brought Israel and Syria as close to a peace agreement as the two nations ever have been."

Hines calls Snow's argument a "baseless burst. Which has been Snow's forte of late."

Poll Watch

Editor and Publisher reports: "Despite several years of official and press reports to the contrary, a new Harris poll finds that half of adult Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when the United States invaded the country in 2003.

"This is actually up from 36% last year, a Harris poll finds. . . .

"In another finding wildly diverging from most expert opinion and media reports, Harris found that 64% said Saddam Hussein had 'strong links' with al-Qaeda, up from 62% in October 2004."

Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum writes: "As the prewar facts become clearer and Iraq spirals further into civil war, the American public becomes ever more withdrawn from reality. Even if complaints from us shrill liberal bloggers are dismissed, surely poll results like this should get the media pondering the question of whether they're doing a very good job of reporting what's really going on."

Dream Job

Ben Smith wrote in the New York Daily News last week about a "posting for the job of Press Assistant, which was circulated privately several weeks ago.

"At the heart of the job description is this sentence (emphasis added):

" 'The Press Assistant is responsible for monitoring media for various national security and domestic issues, informing the Press Secretary and Deputy Press Secretary of issues of note and factual inaccuracies in the media .' "

Al Kamen writes in the Washington Post today: "The job has been filled by Jamie Hennigan, a dedicated and super-competent reelection campaign aide."

Mystery Critic Revealed

John Wagner and Robert Barnes write in The Washington Post: "Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's Senate campaign acknowledged yesterday that he was the anonymous candidate quoted by a Washington Post political reporter as saying that being a Republican was like wearing a 'scarlet letter' and that he did not want President Bush to campaign for him this fall.

"The campaign made the disclosure after a day of speculation in the blogosphere and among political reporters about which Republican Senate candidate had made the disparaging remarks reported by Dana Milbank in the Washington Sketch column in yesterday's Post."

Moving Out

Steven Thomma writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "The press corps is moving out of the White House so the briefing room can be remodeled. The reporters, photographers and camera and sound crews are moving across the street to temporary quarters in trailers. They could be there as long as nine months.

" 'We're doing this reluctantly,' said Steve Scully, the political editor at C-SPAN and the president of the White House Correspondents Association. 'People come and go. You can see heads of state come and go. We won't see that from across the street. . . . This is a very closed White House and they're very restrictive about who you can talk to. That makes it all the more important to be close.' . . .

"The basement wall next to one reporter's cramped desk is crumbling. The space near the AP Radio and C-SPAN booths flooded recently. The heat and air conditioning need an overhaul. All the new technology needs new wiring.

"And the new briefing room will boast a video wall behind the press secretary for officials to use to illustrate their points."

Karl Rove Watch

Mark Niquette writes in the Columbus Dispatch: "Despite ominous early poll numbers and an Ohio political climate rocked by scandals, presidential adviser Karl Rove said he remains confident that Republicans can keep the governor's office and a U.S. Senate seat this fall.

"A Dispatch mail poll published Sunday showed Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell trailing by 20 points and Republican U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine by 8 points. But Rove said in a brief interview after a speech in Columbus last night that he thinks both still can win."

Cartoon Watch

Here's Tom Toles on Bush's omelet; Ben Sargent on Bush's reading of the Constitution; and Tony Auth on Bush's approach to the Middle East.