Common Sense

There seems to be a little confusion about how and when Sec. John Snow got canned so that Paulson could replace him at Treasury. The other Snow, Tony Snow (no relation), tries to clear it up at today’s Briefing.

Q I’m a little bit confused on the tick-tock. You said that the job was offered to Mr. Paulson on May 20th, and they accepted the process on the 21st.

MR. SNOW: That is correct.

Didn’t President Bush say that Sec. Snow was “doing a fine job” at last Thursday’s press conference with Tony Blair?

Q So we’re talking more than a week ago. The President last week, when he was asked if he was — how he was going to deal with Mr. Snow, said, well, I guess — he said, he’s going to offer his resignation to me, and then went on to say he’s a — good job. This was something that was in play obviously before that, so in terms of its filling a vacancy, which is how you characterized it a minute ago, it wasn’t a vacancy, it was switching a person, wasn’t it?

MR. SNOW: No, he said, he’s not talked to me about resignation. That does not mean that there were not other discussions. I mean, it was artfully worded. But on the other hand, the one thing you do not want to do in a situation like this is to start speculating about changes before the changes are ready to be made. Those do have impacts on markets, and you have to be responsible and cautious in the way you deal with them. Again, at that point, Hank Paulson — you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got all the clearances taken care of.

OMG, that’s so funny. “Artfully worded.” Ha ha ha. From the man who says “nukular” and who probably couldn’t spell discombobulated, let alone say it, we get something “artfully worded?”

I may have to lie down for a while because of that one.

There seems to be a little confusion about how and when Sec. John Snow got canned so that Paulson could replace him at Treasury. The other Snow, Tony Snow (no relation), tries to clear it up at today’s Briefing.

Q I’m a little bit confused on the tick-tock. You said that the job was offered to Mr. Paulson on May 20th, and they accepted the process on the 21st.

MR. SNOW: That is correct.

Didn’t President Bush say that Sec. Snow was “doing a fine job” at last Thursday’s press conference with Tony Blair?

Q So we’re talking more than a week ago. The President last week, when he was asked if he was — how he was going to deal with Mr. Snow, said, well, I guess — he said, he’s going to offer his resignation to me, and then went on to say he’s a — good job. This was something that was in play obviously before that, so in terms of its filling a vacancy, which is how you characterized it a minute ago, it wasn’t a vacancy, it was switching a person, wasn’t it?

MR. SNOW: No, he said, he’s not talked to me about resignation. That does not mean that there were not other discussions. I mean, it was artfully worded. But on the other hand, the one thing you do not want to do in a situation like this is to start speculating about changes before the changes are ready to be made. Those do have impacts on markets, and you have to be responsible and cautious in the way you deal with them. Again, at that point, Hank Paulson — you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got all the clearances taken care of.

OMG, that’s so funny. “Artfully worded.” Ha ha ha. From the man who says “nukular” and who probably couldn’t spell discombobulated, let alone say it, we get something “artfully worded?”

I may have to lie down for a while because of that one.