Is James Baker Coming Back to the White House?
          President Bush bypassed the one person who is 100% behind the President’s policies when he picked Tony Snow as his new Press Secretary, while ignoring Brit Hume who is the most outspoken person in the country in favor of the President.
            This is reminiscent of the time when James Baker was appointed by Republican liberals to muzzle Ronald Reagan at the end of his term because Baker and his friends never understood or agreed with his policies particularly those concerning taxes which the Vice President, George Bush, Sr., called “voodoo economics.” When the Vice President ran the next year, he called for a “kinder, gentler America,” an obvious slap at Reagan.
           No one is denying that Snow has been sharply critical of this President or that he served as speechwriting director and deputy assistant for media affairs for the elder Bush when he was President.
            A.P. wrote in its story this morning: “Snow has had some harsh words to say about Bush.” It then cited many of them. (Article can be found HERE)
            The best interview of Snow was an extensive one on the Brit Hume show last night followed by a discussion by the All Star panel, who were all highly in favor of the appointment. Those segments can be heard live on the Fox News site this morning and are worth listening to (they can be found HERE), but there are no transcripts that we can report to you.
            Basically, Snow has promised a kinder, gentler America, the same as he did when the elder Bush was President. Snow sincerely believes that if he placates the Press corps, he can win their friendship and “save” the Presidency.
            “This is basically the same thing that Bob Dole tried,” said one analyst who says that Dole thought he could just smile his way to the Presidency. “Tony Snow really believes that the radical left is going to praise the President if Tony only smiles at them.” 

Fox News Will Get Huge Power from Snow’s Appointment
            Some are wondering about the complicity of Fox News as it is obviously going to gain huge power with a conduit directly to the President. Was it just coincidence that Fox forced Chris Wallace to interview Kenneth Duberstein last Sunday and relate how the James Baker clique successfully “saved” the Reagan Presidency?
            The man that Fox wanted interviewed, Mr. Duberstein, was the last Chief of Staff for Reagan and was appointed by James Baker.
            The powerful executives at Fox are headquartered in New York City. They are now trying to remove Hume and his outpost in Washington by putting the Fox Report with Shepard Smith in direct competition with Hume. It is obviously getting more money and staff than Hume is allowed. 

Savage Attack by Cato Was Terribly Damaging
            Even though the libertarian CATO Institute is one of our favorite organizations and Bruce Bartlett is one of our favorite writers, they got it wrong in blaming Pres. Bush for all of our problems in their Policy Report earlier this year.
            Do you remember the frantic election in 2000? You may recall that Newt Gingrich declined to run and Pat Buchanan ran as the Reform Party candidate. Many others dropped out even before the Iowa Caucus: Lamar Alexander, Bob Dole, John Kasich, Dan Quayle and Steve Forbes.
            That left George Bush, John McCain and Alan Keyes as the only candidates and Keyes soon faded for many reasons.
            McCain (the favorite of the liberal media) won big in New Hampshire (49% to Bush’s 30%) and again in the Michigan Open Primary. That put the Texas governor on the defensive. But Bush essentially won the election when he scored big in South Carolina and easily won at the Convention.
            No one can forget the final battle of Bush against Al Gore where the major television shows sent everyone to bed believing that Al Gore had won. Then we watched the recount in Florida. Even after it was clear that Bush had eked out a victory, Gore refused to concede.
            By these dirty tactics, the Democrats succeeded in causing the Bush staff to spend its entire time on winning the election when he should have been choosing his staff. As a result, he had to take office with many of Clinton’s people still in place at the White House and at other offices around Washington. They were still there at the devastating attack on September 11, 2001.
            It is amazing that Bush is finally succeeding in putting much of his programs into effect. None of us like a lot of those programs --- and we don’t believe Bush does either --- but think of the alternative. Would you rather have Al Gore or John Kerry as our President?
            So, we agree with almost all of what CATO and Bruce Bartlett wrote, but we cannot agree that Pres. Bush should receive anything but plaudits for a fantastic job in a treacherous time that could have ruined our country --- and still could if we continue to bicker among ourselves.
            It’s also interesting to note that Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire owner of Fox, is rumored to have been on Cato’s Board of Directors last year, but they do not tell whether that is true. If it is true, it would appear to have been a gigantic mistake on their part, particularly when Murdoch and Fox are shown as gaining huge power from Snow’s appointment.

Do you have an opinion on the appointment of Tony Snow? We have found very little serious discussion in conservative circles of the appointment. Email us with your thoughts HERE.