Well, Tony, where would YOU drop it?

Having changed directions with their leak to ABC, the junta has of course sent Tony Snow out for damage control to slow the Sunday headlines. With these winners:

“It has been described as her idea but ... I don’t want to try to vouch for origination,” said White House press secretary Tony Snow, who previously had asserted Miers was the person who came up with the idea. “At this juncture, people have hazy memories.”

snip

We don’t know motivations. ... I don’t think it’s safe to go any further than that.”

snip

Asked if Bush himself might have suggested the firings, Snow said, “Anything’s possible ... but I don’t think so.” He said Bush “certainly has no recollection of any such thing. I can’t speak for the attorney general.

“I want you to be clear here: don’t be dropping it at the president’s door,” Snow said.

Wow, subtle, Tony. Really subtle. First, notice a few things- the party line has constantly shifted. And maybe Tony, knowing full well that this thing is turning into an avalanche, has dropped the staunch denail of Chimpy McFuckface's involvement for a "no recollection" and "memories are hazy" defense. Especially since the emails released last night, clearly show that Gonzales was involved at the beginning and that "loyalty to Bush" was a part of the criteria. Here's where things get messy: what is loyalty to Bush? Is it prosecuting people who take bribes and ferretting out a network of bribers and illegal contributors? Because that's the only thing we can find on Carol Lam. Was it resistance to ethical breaches by lawmakers and staffers? Because that's what we've got on Iglesias and McKay.

A couple other subtleties in Tony's two step:

1) He says he can't speak for AG Gonzales. That, to me, is part of the subtle separation that's happening between Gonzalez and the Junta. It shifts the discussion back to AG Gonzales and gently shoves from the sidewalk towards the oncoming bus.

2) Well, this isn't really that subtle, but the idea that this story shouldn't end up at Chucklenutz's doorstep? That is laughable. This administration has a 6 year track record of shielding and rewarding the folks that are caught with their hands in the cookie jar. This was a sure-fire plan to make sure anyone investigating damaging activity and failing to adhere to administration pushes for questionable indictments was fired- hatched and put forward by his closest advisors. Who else has culpability on this but the President? He believes, even now, that the firings are fine, that he's only upset with how telling people about it was handled. But this was a coverup of politically motivated firings to use a provision "snuck" into the (un)Patriot(ic) act to replace decent lawyers with more loyal syncophants. This was deliberate and came from on high. And since Gonzales doesn't wipe his ass without Chucklenutz's say so, who do YOU think is responsible?

Who does the buck stop with, Tony?

Dance, Varmit!

More from TPMMuckraker and Tony Snow's tapdancing... nice to see the gaggle showing a little spine today:

Q The President said, "I've heard those allegations about political decision-making; it's just not true." How can he say that when he hasn't seen all the emails, emails continue to come out, and of those that have already come out, some of them clearly seem to show that at some level, at least, there was political decision-making?

MR. SNOW: I'm not -- how would you define "political decision-making"?

Q Well, decision-making that involves politics.

Q How would you define it, Tony?

go to tpm for the rest of this insightful exchange.

Tony doesn't know!

For the record, Josh Marshall and the fine folks at Talking Points Memo and their sibling site, tpmmuckraker, have done the yeoman's work behind pushing Attorneygate to the forefront, going into their vast archives to explain how the Republican claims of "voter fraud" is code for republic voter suppression, and garnering apologies from members of the mainstream media who suggested, " in this case some liberals are seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist." This story is on the radar primarily because of their work. So in it, we see yet another example of bloggers doing a better job finding and presenting the stories than the MSM.

As part of their non-stop coverage, Paul Kiel at tpmmuckraker put up the text from this morning's press gaggle with Tony Snow, who doesn't know anything, doesn't believe loyalty should be the criteria for US Attorneys, and continues the canard that poor reviews and not loyalty to the White House is what is being referred to in the volumes of emails of the docu-dump Monday. If you have a moment and want to see just how many lies, half truths, and weasel words Snow uses, take a gander.

Tony Doesn't Know!