Part of the reason is that the White House press corps thinks it forced Bush to shake-up his staff. Stories about how the White House staff was burned out and ineffective in promoting his achievements were a media staple in the months leading up to the resignations of McClellan and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card. Thus the press is pleased that it not only got Bush to take notice of its agenda, but to act on it.

Another factor is that Snow comes from Fox News, where he has been a radio and television personality for many years. It confirms in the minds of many reporters that the relationship between Fox and the Republican Party goes over the line and makes a mockery of Fox’s journalistic integrity. But of course this is just hypocrisy. The rest of the major media leans so heavily toward the Democratic Party it is simply taken as the normal state of affairs.

Finally, there is the question of why Snow was offered the job and why he took it. After all, he has not been shy about making pointed criticisms of Bush from a conservative perspective. And it is rare for such a prominent media figure to take the job of White House press secretary. One has to go back to Pierre Salinger, who served John F. Kennedy, to find someone of equivalent prominence who came into that position.

In fact, it is uncommon for a White House press secretary to have national media experience. Most press secretaries got there by being the press secretary to congressmen, senators and such. I think that one has to go back to Ron Nessen, Gerald Ford’s press secretary, to find one who came directly out of the news business.

One reason for this is that members of the working press like to pretend that they are nonpartisan, however much they may tilt ideologically toward the Democrats. A corollary to this is that there are so few Republicans in the major media that Republican presidents would not have found many kindred souls there if they had looked.

Also, Republicans know that there is a media double standard: Democrats are permitted to take partisan positions in government and still work the media afterwards, while Republicans are almost never allowed to do so. It is inconceivable that a Republican would ever being given the positions that George Stephanopoulos has at ABC News or Bill Moyers has with PBS. A Republican would be viewed as too partisan, while even the most partisan Democrat can pretend to still be objective.

The most a Republican can hope for is a position that involves peddling opinions, as Bill Safire did in the New York Times after being a speechwriter for Richard Nixon. But he’s really the exception that proves the rule that Republicans are persona non grata in the major media.

To me, the most interesting thing about Snow’s appointment is that unlike many other conservative pundits he never pulled his punches in attacking Bush and Republicans in Congress for their violation of conservative principles. Following are a couple of quotes from recent Snow newspaper columns: Continued...