White House Press Secretaries
Jay Rosen thinks no blogger sympathetic to the Bush agenda has had the balls to say this, so allow me to be the first. Scott McClellan was a disaster for that agenda. He was completely inept at explaining Bush’s policies, and embarrassingly bad at everything a press secretary has to do. Every day, he projected to the entire world a pathetic image of sad sackery – and with the presidential seal right there under his quacking face.
To say Tony Snow would be an upgrade would be the quintessential understatment.
UPDATE: Heh. Probably an unintentional heh, but heh nonetheless.
April 23rd, 2006 at 7:51 pm
All I can say is, Scott McClellan was a disaster for the Bush agenda. He was completely inept at explaining Bush’s policies, and embarrassingly bad at everything a press secretary has to do. Every day, he projected to the entire world a pathetic image of sad sackery and with the presidential seal right there under his quacking face.
April 23rd, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Hah! I was saying this back in July of last year…
April 23rd, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Perhaps few right-side bloggers have given Scotty a critical send-off, but I don’t recall a lot of support and praise for Scotty while he held the job either. If there’s a “Scott McC Rocks” website somewhere, I missed it.
When was the last time someone *praised* the Bush message machine?
I think the most apt description of the situation is: nobody has liked Bush’s handling of the press, Scott’s job is thankless, why pile on when he’s leaving?
April 23rd, 2006 at 9:33 pm
One reason, and one reason only: to disprove Jay Rosen’s theory that our failure to pile on was caused by want of balls.
April 24th, 2006 at 12:50 am
Funny. Really funny.
Didn’t want a pile on? That’s a good one.
But I didn’t say that your failure to speak out about the dreadful McClellan was caused by cojones-less-ness. I said it showed that you don’t have the balls– I say “you” only since you’re taking it personally. The cause, if I may speculate, was that you adored and cheered the image of the press being put down because it expressed how you feel about Washington journalists, and didn’t ask whether it was actually good for the Bush agenda to have a pathetic clown as chief spokesman for the President.
Basically a case of right wing PC– one of many.
April 24th, 2006 at 7:16 am
Keep on speculating; that certainly wasn’t the cause, at least in my case. I would indeed adore and cheer the image of the press being put down, if it was done right. McClellan never did it right; he always struck me more as the press’s punching bag rather than a credible counter to it.
April 24th, 2006 at 7:35 am
It’s one thing to say McClellan was bad/incompetent/disaster while he was Press Secretary, to say it now is a bit of bad form (oops, did I just say it now?).
What’s the point of badmouthing him now? The point of doing it earlier was to get someone’s attention so he could be replaced. That’s been done, let McClellan rest in peace with all the other disasterous appointments this admin has had (oops, my bad, again).
April 24th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
I, for one, would love to see the press put down.
Rummy for press secretary! (just kidding… I think)
Those Jedi mind tricks and Vulcan gestures just do it for me. I can picture him reaching out and touching some member of the press after some blatantly stupid question (“But those missles are 90% effective, how could one miss?” –paraphrased) and apply a paralysing nerve pinch while smiling and pointing out just how stupid that self-answering question is to the viewers. Yeah, that would make me chortle.
*snaps awake from a pleasant daydream*
I remember Ari fondly. Scott has been a big null-o for me. I’ve winced more than anything.
April 25th, 2006 at 3:21 am
No shit. Talk about deer-in-the-headlights. I hope Tony Snow gets the job. He’ll be the iron fist in a velvet glove. He projects the image of a nice guy, but he’ll fold those assholes up in a suitcase and send them off to Syracuse.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:56 am
If we get Tony Snow I can’t tell you how overjoyed I’ll be! Supposedly he’s been cleared by his doctors, but has he actually decided to take it?
April 25th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Dunno, but CNN seems to think so.
April 25th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Let’s not go overboard on Snow. remember, a press secretary is only as good as the policies he is trying to sell, and Bush’s policies are going over as well with the public as (insert reference here). Also, Snow is at heart a journalist, with all the good and the bad that goes with it, so it’s no sure thing that he’ll take on his former buddies.
April 25th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Don’t mind if I do:
April 26th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Ah, do you really think that all Bush needs to reverse his slide in the polls is a better ad agency? Tony Snow can dress up Bush’s policies but the public will still recognize them for the pigs that they are.
Thinking that Bush’s problem lies with the messenger only delays the inevitable having to face up to the fact that the public just doesn’t like what Bush is selling… and a new salesman won’t do Bush any more good than a new set of commercials will help GM sell more cars.
April 26th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Calling someone you don’t even know a “pig” reveals a lot more about you than about them, and calling your opinion a “fact” does not make it so. I think you’d be hard-pressed to point to any significant difference between the Bush Administration’s policies today, vs. a year or two ago, when his polling numbers were much better. Nor will you find any proof that Americans’ attitudes on the substantive issues have changed, except maybe on Iraq, and then only because it’s been increasingly perceived as a failure. And if you think that perception has nothing to do with the abysmal job the Administration has done in pointing out its successes, you’re dreaming.
Translated: a new salesman will do Bush as much good as a new set of commercials will do to help GM sell more cars, assuming that the new set of commercials is superior to the old set by the same margin Snow is to McClellan. Of course a new ad campaign can help sell more cars, what do you think ad campaigns are for?
My guess is that you’ve fallen into the Pauline Kael trap: no salesman for the Bush Administration would be able to persuade Steve Sturm to back the Administration or purchase a GM car, therefore, no salesman could ever persuade anyone else, either. Of course some people will always buy GM / vote Republican, and others never will, but in both cases, it’s up to the salesman to reach everyone else.
April 26th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
I didn’t call “someone” a pig, I was referring to Bush’s policies. And while we could go round and round on whether ‘pig’ is an apt description of Bush’s policies, and whether I am alone in my dislike of those policies, I’ll simply rephrase: “Bush can hire himself a handsome, well-spoken, silky voiced, talented, well-liked press secretary who will do hands down a better job than did Scott McClellan in putting forward Bush’s policies and I still won’t like those policies.
While I try hard not to challenge you on your home turf of the law, since marketing is my area of expertise, I challenge your assertion that a new salesman will help Bush. A good salesman can make people aware of a product, he can make people aware of the (perceived) benefits of a product, he can hopefully address objections people have to buying those products… but will do next to no good if either (1) the people are aware of the product and just don’t like it, or (2) distrust the manufacturer of the product. And, unfortunately for Bush, the people (yes, Pauline) don’t like what Bush is pitching… but more importantly, they don’t like – or trust – him.
The people who think Bush is merely suffering from a bad advertising campaign are going to be sadly disappointed when Savior Snow fails to bump Bush’s ratings to the 50%+ mark.
April 26th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Ari Fleischer did a decent job in this regard, and Bush’s ratings were fine. McClellan did a so-so job making people aware of the Administration’s policies, and an abysmal job of addressing objections people had to them – even on the frequent occasions when the underlying policies were popular, the press’s objections were silly and McClellan should have owned his oppponents. I would hope that if we agree on nothing else, we can agree that Snow will do a better job than McClellan in this regard – correct?
I think (2) is a bit overly broad, as it fails to account for why the people distrust the manufacturer. Without understanding why people distrust the manufacturer, it’s impossible to tell what the manufacturer can do to regain that trust, or if it is even possible to do so. People distrust tobacco companies because they manufacture tobacco products; good luck marketing your way out of that problem. Similarly, if Bush’s trust problem arose from him actually doing anything untrustworthy, there’s not a lot any spin doctor could do to help him. However, actual breach of trust is not the source of the problem; failure to respond promptly and effectively to all the moonbat “Bush lied, people died, Halliburton got rich and Presidents declassifying information is a crime” crap as it arose over the years, is. The “promptly” train left the station a long time ago, so if your only point is that hiring Tony Snow now will not boost Bush’s rankings as high as they probably would be if the Administration three years ago, I don’t disagree. But there is evidence that at least some lost ground can be regained, e.g., the last time Bush & Cheney did go on the offensive, poll numbers did improve.
As to policies the public simply doesn’t like, which ones do you have in mind? Non-amnesty amnesty is the only one that comes to mind, but Bush has been pushing that issue for years so no one can credibly claim “betrayal” over that one (though some do, other than credibly). The rest of the stuff that has the media exercised right now – violating al-Qaeda’s civil liberties, declassifying information without consulting the Dalai Lama or whoever the hell else the media thinks gets to decide what information will or will not be classified, you name it – is stuff that sells reasonably well with the public DESPITE the Administration’s marketing department having been AWOL. If the Administration had actually made its case for these programs rather than lazily assuming they didn’t have to, how could that not result in higher poll ratings?
April 26th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
As my final parting shot on this exchange, I agree Snow will do better job than McClellan (who wouldn’t?) and I think you hit the nail on the head that Bush would be sitting prettier had he/his team done a better job selling the product three years ago.
As for the specific policies that his base (base, since his losing his base is the crux of the problem) doesn’t like, I would cite immigration (yes, he’s been in favor of amnesty for a while, but it’s only recently come to the forefront), sticking around in Iraq, federal spending, the medicare drug benefit, and high gas prices*.
* yes, he’s not responsible, but the public seems to hold him responsible anyway, since his unpopularity sure tracks the price of gas.