The Outlaw Presidency

"At the White House, he turned the daily press briefing into something of a one-man show, challenging reporters' questions and delivering hard-hitting answers, even when he was occasionally short on the facts. More than once, Mr. Snow was forced to apologize, as he did shortly after taking the job, when he erroneously said that Mr. Bush viewed embryonic stem cell research as murder....

"His snappy sound bites made Mr. Snow an instant hit among Republicans. 'It's like Mick Jagger at a rock concert,' Karl Rove, the president's former political strategist, once said."

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post that Snow "redefined the role of White House press secretary with his lively banter with reporters...

"Parlaying skills honed during years at Fox News, he offered a daily televised defense of the embattled president that was robust and at times even combative while repairing strained relations with a press corps frustrated by years of rote talking points.

"He was lively and entertaining, he could be disarmingly candid when ducking a question, and he did not hesitate to retreat when it became clear he had gone too far. He could tell reporters to 'zip it' one minute and defuse tension the next by admitting that he knew so little about a topic that he was 'not going to fake it.' He enjoyed the give-and-take of a tough briefing, but his smile, upbeat energy and glib repartee seemed to take the edge off sometimes rough rhetoric on behalf of an unpopular leader and unpopular policies....

"But at times, [his job] seemed to be more about theater than information. He demonstrated little interest in the nitty-gritty of policy and delegated most off-camera reporter inquiries to his deputies. Precision was not his strong suit; translating difficult decisions into easily digestible explanations was."

Vice President Cheney spoke at length about Snow on Fox News yesterday: "I frankly agreed with him on nearly everything," Cheney said. "I always thought of him as a guy who understood very well the purposes of government and that they were limited, and that there were some things government shouldn't do that we are best able to do for ourselves....

"I've known or worked with a lot of press secretaries, White House press secretaries, in my 40 years in Washington, and I'd have to say that Tony's the best. He had this rare combination of intelligence, of commitment and loyalty to the President that he was working for, but also this great love of going out behind that podium and doing battle."

Snow's passing is undeniably a personal tragedy. But let's hope that no future press secretary takes his or her cues from all those glowing obituaries and tributes. As I wrote last March, in a column entitled The Spokesman Made for Cable, Snow's primary goal seemed to be to "win the half hour" -- which generally entailed out-talking and mocking his questioners, rather than mustering facts and actually staking out persuasive positions.

And despite all his charm, he stoked the pernicious myth that reporters asking questions somehow constituted the political opposition, to be slain in the field of righteous rhetorical battle, rather than being representatives of the public's right to know what is being done in their name.

Iraq Watch

Bush's planned endgame in Iraq appears to be seriously unraveling.

Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.