Office of the Independent Blogger

Call me a sucker, but I liked this fluff piece in the WSJ about Tony Snow’s clothing style. Tell you the truth, I think Tony is everything that a Press Secretary should be — except for Democratic. All kidding aside, I really believe that he’s a breath of fresh air.

In an administration that prides itself on viewing the world in black and white, White House press secretary Tony Snow is injecting a lot of color. Five months into the job, the former Fox News pundit is using his wardrobe to communicate that he’s not the stereotypical press secretary. With few exceptions, such as the late Pierre Salinger in the 1960s and Ron Nessen in the 1970s, they’ve worn nondescript clothes. President Bush’s first press secretary, Ari Fleischer, who notes that he is colorblind, says his wife dressed him, picking conservative clothes and staying away from things like vertical stripes that look bad on TV. “Press secretaries have tended to come out of either newspaper reporting or political public relations,” says presidential historian Stephen Hess, who teaches at George Washington University. “Neither of those occupations would be noted for classy haberdashery.”

Mr. Snow mixes things up, with colors that often seem to reflect the administration’s mood. Discussing Syria recently, he wore a serious white shirt and maroon tie. When the president gave an upbeat press conference in the Rose Garden after a surprise visit to Iraq, Mr. Snow wore a cheery pink shirt and light blue tie.

Just because this government governs Ugly, doesn’t mean they have to dress like it! (PS: Didn’t they ridicule Al Gore for dressing in a manner more consistent with his moods?)

Actually, I really do wish everyone in the Bush Administration were as chipper, enthusiastic and unorthodox as Tony Snow because if they were, we wouldn’t have to come across articles like this one, titled, “Suits Say U.S. Impeded Audits for Oil Leases.”

Four government auditors who monitor leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover millions of dollars from companies they said were cheating the government. The accusations, many of them in four lawsuits that were unsealed last week by federal judges in Oklahoma, represent a rare rebellion by government investigators against their own agency. The auditors contend that they were blocked by their bosses from pursuing more than $30 million in fraudulent underpayments of royalties for oil produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

You see?

This morning, I woke up, rolled over, turned on the computer and went back to sleep, and then my cat came over, meowed and headbutt my face to wake me. After feeding Greyback, I checked my email, and I’d received a note with this link, which takes you to a transcript of Bill Clinton’s latest interview with Fox News. It’s good stuff, on the merits of his argument and the passion he displays, like when Bill tells his interviewer that he has a smug smirk, and you half-expect Clinton to say, “I’m going to slap it off your face if you don’t stop smiling.” It’s good to see the former President defend himself from nonsense.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 23rd, 2006 at 7:53 am and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).