Tony Snow, New Target Of The Left

Left-leaning analysts have been poring over the sayings and writings of Tony Snow for anything that was less than complementary of his new boss. The silly assumption of their hunt is that the President is either too stupid or too lacking in confidence to tolerate the presence in the White House of a non-sycophant who has a record of expressed personal opinions. The fact is that Snow's appointment was no doubt very purposeful and was intended as providing a veneer of credibility in the Press Office that has always been lacking during the McClellan era.

Since in this morning's public announcement of Snow's appointment the President directly acknowledged Tony's disagreements with him and welcomed his fresh input, that argument has been totally disarmed.

The new tactic now appears in the leftist press. Snow is accused of saying the following perfectly reasonable thing:

"Here's the unmentionable secret," Snow said on an October 2003 edition of Fox News Sunday, "racism isn't that big a deal anymore." Snow argued that "no sensible person supports" racism, arguing that the problem is "quickly becoming an ugly memory."

This tidbit, which we can now expect to be the first issue to be raised with Snow by the crack White House Press Corps, is meant to provide raw meat to the Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson wing of the party who maintain that all problems in the African-American community are the product of an active and virulent racism. Please ring the bell Dr. Pavlov. No matter that a growing number of African-Americans from Shelby Steele to Bill Cosby are moving beyond the tragic history of white racism and slavery, the original sins or our nation, to seek effective means to change the remaining scars of that history from within the community.

It is all about a desperate attempt to maintain the monolithic ownership of black American's votes by the Democratic Party. It will be interesting to see if and how Tony Snow will respond.