April 25, 2006

Snow In May?

A week after White House press secretary Scott McClellan suddenly resigned, and -- nothing.

Late last week, White House chief of staff Josh Bolten directly (firmly but politely) asked senior administration officials to stop unburdening themselves to the process-hungry Washington press corps. That explains, in part, why speculative chatter has diminished.

In the meantime, Fox Newser Tony Snow is said by Republicans familiar with the negotiations to have asked for guaranteed access to the president's ear and to an unusually large degree of latitude to reconfigure the WH press operation. That pleases the new chief of staff, who wants to relegitimize the press podium in the Brady briefing room.

But Snow, not content to be a herald, also wants near-complete control over what he says from the podium, be it bromides, platitudes or substance. That would encroach on the broad portfolio of responsibilities that Dan Bartlett claims for himself.

As of this morning, Snow's colleagues at the White House haven't been formally told that he's coming -- or if he's coming, when the announcement will out.

It's a safe bet that the president's advisers don't want to give the White House press corps a personnel announcement to deflect attention from the president's four-point plan to ease fears about gas prices.

BTW: Under the Bolten regime, expect to see far more X-point-plans and regular metric-tracking of said points. Bolten is a metric fan. [MARC AMBINDER]

Posted at 09:17 AM

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