C&L covered this segment from last Friday's Countdown, but I thought an emphasis on Richard Clarke's scathing remarks about the lack of, and the need for, accountability from the Bush administration for the countless lies they told their country and the world about pre-Iraq invasion intelligence, was well deserved.

I have been telling anyone who will listen, that we must watch out for these bad pennies when their names start to creep back into the political arena - names like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who both worked in the Nixon administration. Looking back, we find ourselves wondering how we didn't see this disaster coming, or why more people didn't speak out at the time. I fully agree with Richard Clarke's statements; we must not allow these thugs back into civilized society -- they should not be rewarded for perpetrating so many horrific and destructive crimes against their own people, and other places around the globe.

Clarke: "Well, there may be some other kind of remedy. There may be some sort of truth and reconciliation commission process that's been tried in other countries, South Africa, Salvador and what not, where if you come forward and admit that you were in error or admit that you lied, admit that you did something, then you're forgiven. Otherwise, you are censured in some way."

"Now, I just don't think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let them pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 Americans dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded, and they'll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives."

You can rest assured, the day that names like Karl Rove, Tom Delay, Condoleeza Rice or those of anyone who served in the Bush administration creep into the public or political sphere, we, and the rest of the blogosphere, will sound the alarm to make sure none of these people are able to damage our country ever again. More from Think Progress.

Who saw this coming?

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow will join CNN as a conservative commentator beginning today, it was announced by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S.

A well-known and respected observer of politics with a longstanding news background, Snow will contribute to CNN as the network continues to broadcast winning political coverage.

Snow most recently served as press secretary to President George W. Bush from April 2006 to September 2007. For 10 years beginning in 1996, he appeared on Fox News Channel, hosting Fox News Sunday, Weekend Live with Tony Snow and other programs. From 2003 to 2006, The Tony Snow Show aired on Fox News Radio. Before joining Fox, Snow served as a substitute "From the Right" co-host for CNN's Crossfire.

"In the White House, Tony brought a remarkably human touch to the discussion of public policy, which he will continue to do as part of the Best Political Team on Television," Klein said. "He will contribute a unique breadth of political and journalistic expertise to what is already the most provocative and wide-ranging political analysis on the air."

Oy.

"I'm delighted to be able to join CNN during the most exciting and unpredictable political year in memory,” Snow said. “The big challenge in 2008 is to develop deep, creative and aggressive analysis of both political parties, their candidates and campaigns. I’m eager to get started, since this race is sure to shape American politics for years to come."

John Amato: I'm wondering when some fresh new liberal blood will be added to CNN's staff instead of "more of the same" Republican shills from the Corporate media. Having Paul Begala on just doesn't cut it anymore.

Think Progress:

Bill O’Reilly’s blog reports that former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow will join Bill O’Reilly’s radio show as his “permanent fill-in host“:

We’re pleased to announce that former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow will be joining the Factor as Bill’s permanent fill-in host for the Radio Factor!

You can hear Tony on the Radio Factor on Fridays, starting tomorrow, Friday, February 21.

Welcome to the Factor, Tony! We’re all excited to have you on board. Read on...

A match made in heaven. Tar babies and lynching parties. Now that's entertainment O'Reilly's fans can really sink their teeth into.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

What has Billo's knickers in a twist tonight? Tony Snow appeared on Bill Maher's Real Time with *gasp* an audience and panel not consisting of an echo chamber. Quelle horreur! And to make matters worse, one of the people looking to inject some reality into Tony Snow's cheerleading was Billo's nemesis Mark Cuban. It is absolutely unthinkable to Bill that they would stack the panel so that the one conservative was facing three "far left loons" (His words, not mine. Who knew that Catherine Crier was a far left loon?).

Now I’ve seen people outnumbered, but nothing like Tony Snow was on that program.

Um, hello??? Let me reacquaint Bill with the typical line up by pointing to the Sunday "news" shows, where just this past Sunday, only two of the nine guests over five shows were Democrats. So is Bill saying that the only fair programming is to have more conservatives lined up so that they can gang up on the token liberal? *snort* Bill, take a look at the FOXNews programming any day of the week. And let's not forget this report by Media Matters.

Bill brings on author Mark Smith who wins the award for the sheer, mindless ability to spew conservative tropes that have no passing relationship to reality:

And I think, by the way, that the Mark Cubans of the world and the Bill Mahers of the world under no circumstances will change their mind is they can’t afford to. I think the Democrats in America have no choice but to frankly, in many ways, cheer against America.

You need to have crisis and failure in America and overseas to justify more government, higher taxes, and the like. And I think that that’s why they’re so worried that George Bush will succeed in Iraq because if Bush succeeds, all arguments that they’ve been raising will frankly fall by the wayside.

Tired, Mark. Very, very tired. And exhibits the simple binary thought process of your average third grader. But kudos to you for reading Naomi Klein. Too bad you didn't understand a fraking word of it.

Yeah and I think it’s quite interesting Bill, how…and I think if you want to go back to the start of this, I think the fact that the left in America had decades and decades of a media monopoly and I think only now is the left trying to figure out how do they successfully compete in a marketplace of ideas where they no longer have the only voice. Where now they have to explain what they think and why they think it on Fox News, on the internet, on talk radio and the like, and I think they’re adjusting and adapting to that and I think they’re going through, frankly, some growing pains. Which is why we see the vitriolism [sic] that’s being sort of targeted to one another in a way that we haven’t seen in the past.

This is so completely non-reality based that even Bill calls out Smith for it. I mean, even Fox News viewers--incurious as studies have shown them to be--have enough functioning intellect to know that's a huge pile of bovine excrement.

I’ve been saying, if fact, in some ways, maybe the best argument to vote for a Republican, although I’m a conservative, the best argument to vote for a Republican may very well be that we’re not Democrats.

Wow. With all due respect to the man responsible for The Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy 2006: The Arguments You Need to Defeat the Loony Left , I think I speak for more than a few when I say that I'm very grateful you're not on the team.

Following up on an item from last week, former White House press secretary Tony Snow is using his time outside of government service to make increasingly bizarre comments about Iran, academia, and religion. (via the Washington Times)

Tony Snow, former press Secretary to President Bush and Fox news anchor, spoke to the Academy of Leadership & Liberty at Oklahoma Christian University last week.

The winsome and articulate Snow charmed his audience with wit: “The average Iranian is more Pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country.” And with serious talk about the war on terror and “the second war in this country, the war on God.”

This is so dumb, I’m almost surprised Snow would make the comments out loud, in public.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Tony Snow was Jon Stewart's guest last night on The Daily Show, proving you can take the Bushie out of the White House, but you can't take the delusional neo-con rationality out of him. There's always this hope that Stewart will eviscerate (metaphorically, of course) these apologists for the Worst. Presidency. Ever. any time one agrees to come on the show, but that's never been Stewart's style. Sometimes you get further when you don't have both barrels blazing. But even if he had discarded his gentle prodding, that bubble of denial in which Snow comfortably sits look way too thick for Stewart to actually get through.

STEWART: He's a terrific leader...how is that?

SNOW: Okay. Number one, no...

STEWART: I mean that seriously, my definition of a leader is to make tough decisions and then convince people to support them actively and follow you, not...you know, he says, well, I'm not popular because I make tough decisions. Maybe they're wrong...you know, I could say we should wear coats made out of puppies and nobody wants to do it and I'm like "What a great leader, look at me! It's unpopular!"

SNOW: Coats made of puppies!?!?! Oh my God...

STEWART: But he's basically saying...settle down...he's basically saying "Look how unpopular I am...I'm a leader!"

Sometimes, these guys make it too easy. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, yesterday, in his final appearance:

“No, benchmarks were something that Congress wanted to use as a metric. And we’re going to produce a report. But the fact is that the situation is bigger and more complex, and you need to look at the whole picture.”

Reality, as reported last week:

It was the White House and the Iraqi government, not Congress, that first proposed the benchmarks for Iraq that are now producing failing grades, a provenance that raises questions about why the administration is declaring now that the government’s performance is not the best measure of change.

The administration presented a to-do list and said, “Judge us in September on these points.” They’ve successfully completed three of the 18 tasks. In response, the new line is, “To-do lists are stupid.”

AP via ABC News:

Tony Snow, the highly visible White House press secretary, will leave his job on Sept. 14 and be replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino, an administration official said Friday.

President Bush was to announce the changes during an appearance in the White House briefing room.

Snow, ailing with cancer, had said recently he would leave before the end of Bush's presidency because he needs to make more money.

The 52-year-old Snow was a conservative pundit and syndicated talk-show host on Fox News Radio before he was named press secretary on April 26, 2006. He is the latest in a string of White House officials to head for the exits.

Tony Snow told conservative media personality Hugh Hewitt that he’ll be stepping down in the not-too-distant future — and he won’t be alone.

HEWITT: Are there any other resignations upcoming, Tony Snow?

SNOW: I think that probably…as Josh said the other day, he thinks there are probably a couple coming up in the next month or so. […]

HEWITT: Your intention to go the distance, Tony Snow?

SNOW: No, I’m not going to be…I’ve already made it clear I’m not going to be able to go the distance, but that’s primarily for financial reasons. I’ve told people when my money runs out, then I’ve got to go.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that Tony Snow feels compelled to leave his White House job, which pays him $168,000 with a sweet benefits package, because he’s running out of money. If a guy can’t get by on $168,000, the economy can’t be that good.

Looking at the big picture, however, it’s worth noting that it is not at all unusual for a White House to undergo major staffing changes shortly before the end of a second term, but the Bush gang is hemorrhaging staff with about 15 months to go.

...maybe that way we can finally get a straight answer out of the guy. Today on "The Situation Room" FOX News pundit Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to explain away the Senate Democrats' call for a Special Prosecutor to investigate Alberto Gonzalez's deliberately misleading lies accidental misstatements under oath.

Download | play Download | play

According to Snow, the administration has been more than cooperative when it comes to the Senate inquiry into the politically-motivated firing perfectly benign dismissal of the US Attorneys. Can someone remind Tony Snow that the White House refuses to let Harriet Miers and Karl Rove testify under oath? Or that they refuse to produce the 5 MILLION+ emails directly relating to the scandal that mysteriously "vanished"? Or... oh, never mind.

John Amato: Tony Snow accused the Democrats of possibly committing treason. He said they might try to play the gotcha game and expose classified secrets to the media if his peeps actually agreed to testify.

Snow: Suppose behind closed doors, where Karl Rove or anybody else would be under a legal obligation to tell the truth, they found something that gave them pause. They could public with it. 

And if you listen closely----(am I hearing things?) does he suggest that there's another secret spying program going on.  TSP or NSA? Are they one in the same? (transcript below the fold)

Continue reading »

WH Briefing:

MR. SNOW: You don't define victory as keeping troops there. Victory is defeating al Qaeda

Look out, everyone, the White House has a new catch-phrase. “Stay the course” didn’t work out too well, and “they stand up, we stand down” was a policy flop, but now the vaunted White House communications team has a new one.

“The interim report is the beginning of a new kind of surge and it’s a surge of facts, because what’s happened with a lot of the war in Iraq, as you know, Rush, is that people get pictures of dead bodies, but they don’t get any sense of what’s actually going on on the ground,” Tony Snow told Rush Limbaugh yesterday, adding, “[W]e need a surge in facts.”

Snow then hosted a conference call with conservative bloggers.

“We need a surge of facts. That’s one of the things we’re going to be working on. I’m going to be doing it from the podium. [...]

Snow says he’s going to put up slides, video, and audio on new screens behind him during the daily press briefing. “We’re not gonna spin, but we’re going to provide real hard data.”

I can’t believe Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are off this week. Some of this material just writes itself.

 I'm making two video clips because there is so much deceit in everything Snow says that I wanted you to see most of it. What was up with that creepy black background? Was it the cameras or was it staged that way?  Look at this...A new SurveyUSA poll says that America wants Scooter in jail...Repeat after me: Obstruction of Justice!

He was spinning so much that smoke was coming from the soles of his feet and the Press Room could barely keep up with him. He earned his money today for the cult of Bush. When he says that they commuted him now before Scooter served any jail time because they didn't want to lose the paperwork---I mean---this is too much. The years being a FOX host paid off in spades for the White House. He even had the audacity to claim that the 250,000 dollar fine was a hardship on poor old Scooter. Fred Thompson helped raise 4 million dollars for Scooter outside his own personal fortune and Matalin had the nerve during the Walter Reed scandal to beg for more money...And you know they will support him the rest of his life.

Download | play Part 1 Download | play

Download | play Part 2 Download | play

Bush and Cheney are laughing at you. They are laughing at the press that was wrapped up in this case from the beginning and they are laughing at the legal system of the country. Some questions were asked about Cheney's involvement in asking Bush to help his pal and Snow said he had no direct knowledge, but someone might have mentioned it. Ed Henry brought up Bush's "I'll fire anyone who leaked anything," regarding Rove, Snow said he wouldn't comment....Another reporter said:

"How can you stand there with a straight face and say this isn't a political act? What he did was inherently political.

Snow said he has the POWER to do it....Please post in the comment section all the falsehoods Snow said in these two clips so we can have a record...I know, it's a monumental task. Every time he opens his mouth he spins and spins and spins...

Following up on John's item from yesterday on Bush's stem-cell veto, I found Tony Snow's defense of the White House policy rather alarming.

“The President also has never declared it against the law to engage in embryonic stem cell research — he simply thinks it involves, as do many other people, the taking of a human life.”

See? Bush hasn’t banned murder, he’s just blocked some funding for taxpayer-subsidized murder. Privately-funded murder is still fine, and entirely consistent with the president’s values and commitment to a culture of life. Snow added:

“To the extent that there is embryonic stem cell research, it’s being done not because Bill Clinton made it possible, but because George W. Bush made it possible.”

Yes, moments after describing the research as “taking of a human life,” Snow bragged about Bush’s support for the research.

Is a little coherence too much to ask?

Where oh where is our beloved Press Corps? Jon Stewart magnificently busted Tony Snow lying and he did it in the perfect way,..Take a look...

Download | play Download | play

Even Dan Froomkin caught this one...

Stewart explained that Snow "was adamant months ago that the dismissal of these attorneys had nothing to do with politics."

He rolled video of Snow from March 15, saying: "It's pretty clear that these things are based on performance and not on sort of attempts to do political retaliation, if you will."

Stewart: "So anyway, that was three months ago. Three months later, a dozen subpoenas, six hearings, . . . thousands of released e-mails, it turns out that their performances were actually pretty good. And all signs are now pointing to political motivations. I wonder how the White House is going to reconcile this apparent discrepancy?"

Stewart then rolled video from Wednesday's briefing, at which a reporter asked Snow: "At the beginning of this story, the President, you, Dan Bartlett, others said on camera that politics was not involved, this was performance-based, but --"

Snow's reply: "No, that is something -- we have never said that."...read on