Snow Job

OK, so it's been a while since I've had anything to say here. I've had better times. But today, Tony Snow was named the new White House press flak. And this is the kind of thing people who aren't in the media find alarming. One minute, he supposed to be a news commentator and now he's the White House's mouthpiece. So much for any witless fantasy that he might have displayed any objectivity. Is it any wonder so many people don't trust the media?

Now, to be sure, nobody ever was confused about Snow's politics. He's a commentator, not a reporter, and he's a Fox News Channel guy -- or should we call it Fox Republican Propaganda Channel? I was disgusted by a story that circulated not long ago about how Dick Cheney requests the TV's in his hotel rooms to be tuned to Fox News Channel when he gets there, as if he'd shrivel up and melt like the Wicked Witch of the West if he had to be exposed to a less-partial perspective. I won't make the mistake of thinking there's no bias on channels like CNN and MSNBC. There's just a lot less of it there than there is on Fox.

I've always thought it an impossibly irreconcilable paradox that Fox spews all of this conservative bile on its news broadcasts, but its entertainment offerings are often liberal (The Simpsons) or push the edges of the envelope (Family Guy) or are just outright trashy (Cops, The OC, 90210, Melrose Place, Temptation Island, Married With Children, I Want To Marry a Millionaire ... hell, every show they've ever aired!).

So anyway, I guess we get to spend the next couple years listening to smug Uncle Tony tell us how we're winning in Iraq and how the economy is great how the President really does care about high gas prices.

Good thing many of us already are in the habit of not believing anything he says.