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May 19, 2006

Tony Snow's Speaking Problems

Everyone was talking the other day about what it meant when Tony Snow used the term "tar baby" twice in a press conference. Some said it was proof he was, consciously or subconsciously, a racist. And to be fair, Fox News has been pushing the race button quite a bit lately, so it is a short leap to make.

At the time, however, my reaction was wow, shouldn't someone who makes their living working with words and ideas know better than to use a term like that? I know our lexicon retains a few terms from slavery days (such as "cotton pickin'"), but people who have risen to the level of Tony Snow ought to have long ago made a mental note about such terms, thought about the meanings of the words they use, and learned to be a little quicker on their feet than that.

Yesterday Snow slipped again. At a White House press briefing Snow actually referred to a non-Fox news outlet as a "competing network." Naturally, the buzz today is he still thinks he's part of the Fox News team. Personally, I think it was a matter of habit. But like the racism charge the other day, Snow's slip of the tongue is giving people an opportunity to spout their negative opinions of the Administration.

I think Tony Snow has a problem, but it's not that he's racist or that he's owned by Fox News. I think Tony Snow's problem is that he is not serious enough about his new position to think about the words that are coming out of his mouth, and he is not treasuring the language that is the primary tool of the legitimate journalist. These weaknesses will, like Bush's oratory malfunctions, provide us with a lot of entertainment over the coming months, but we should take with a grain of salt the notion that his slips of the tongue are eminently meaningful.

Posted by Becky at May 19, 2006 09:20 AM

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