Today during the White House Press Briefing, Tony Snow apologized to David Gregory for calling him "partisan" last week. This was the question Gregory asked, for those who don't recall:
The co-chairs say the following: "Stay the course is no longer viable. The current approach is not working. The situation is grave and deteriorating." Can this report be seen as anything other than a rejection of this president's handling of the war?
Talk about shooting the messenger. Snow said that Gregory was trying to "frame it in a partisan way" and this was his justification — then, and subsequently, on "Reliable Sources": The members of the Iraq Study Group had said they were there to "help" and that they "were deliberately not trying to have critiques of the administration performance." That, of course, is not what Gregory asked (and Snow further said on "Reliable Sources" that Gregory wasn't actually quoting from the report, which he was). Snow also said on "Reliable Sources" that he tried not to go "picking fights with the press corps" — yet just Monday blew off a question about Senator Gordon Smith's anti-Bush/anti-Iraq speech, saying "[W]hat would you like me to say? Should I do duels at 10 paces?" Yesterday, WaPo's Dana Milbank published a tally of Snow's obfuscating "I don't knows" and noted that they were often used as a "brushoff"; he also noted Snow's habit of — what was that phrase? — picking fights, like calling a question from CBS's Jim Axelrod "loaded" or telling Helen Thomas to "stop pestering the teacher."
That's all by way of background, from last week and yesterday — and, apparently, ancient history, because today, Tony Snow apologized to David Gregory. Gregory asked a question, and Snow responded like so:
TONY SNOW: OK, before I get to that, I want to address something else. Because you and I had a conversation last week that got a whole lot of play in a lot of places, where I used the term "partisan" in describing one of your questions.And I've thought a lot about that, and that I was wrong. So I want to apologize and tell you I'm sorry for it.
DAVID GREGORY: Thank you.
TONY SNOW: And the reason I do that is not only because it's the right thing, but because I want people in this room and also people who watch these to understand that the relations in this room are professional and collegial.
And if I expect you to do right by us, you have every right to expect that I'll do right by you.
So, at any event, I just want to say I'm sorry for that.
It's great that he apologized and great that the apology has been picked up and noted, but I also think it's worth placing that apology in context.
— Rachel Sklar
