Forecast for Monday - Snow

Tony Snow's first day on the job is supposed to be Monday. I was wondering how he would deal with Porter Goss' sudden and unexplained departure. So does Jay Rosen at PressThink:

The CIA director is forced out after a year and the White House gives no reason at all for it. What will the new press secretary do when asked for an explanation that was glaringly absent on Friday? Monday is Snow's first day on the job. Let's see if reason-giving can make a comeback.

• “Neither Bush nor Goss offered a reason for his departure.” (Associated Press.)

• “In a hastily arranged Oval Office announcement that stunned official Washington, neither President Bush nor Goss offered a substantive reason for why the head of the spy agency was leaving after only a year on the job.” (New York Daily News.)

• Porter Goss said Saturday that his surprise resignation as CIA director is “just one of those mysteries,” offering no other explanation for his sudden departure after almost two years on the job. (CNN.)

• “Seated next to President Bush in the Oval Office, Goss, a Republican congressman from Florida before he took over the CIA, said he was ‘stepping aside’ but gave no reason for the departure. (Washington Post.)

• “Mr. Goss said it had been ‘a very distinct honor and privilege’ to lead the C.I.A. ‘I would like to report to you that the agency is back on a very even keel and sailing well,’ Mr. Goss said. He did not explain his decision, and both he and Mr. Bush ignored questions after making their statements. (New York Times.)

Remarkable, isn’t it?

Reason-giving is basic to government by consent of the governed. Very basic. An Administration that doesn’t have to give reasons for what it is doing is unaccountable to the American people and their common sense, to world opinion: even to itself.

To pressure the CIA director to leave after a year, and to give no reason at all for it—not even “spend more time with the family”—is a big screw you to anyone trying to discern what the President is doing and what the government is up to.

This is why we have professional journalists as part of our public life. They are supposed to step in when reason-giving falters, and press for an explanation. And if on Monday, the White House press corps can’t get an explanation for Goss’s departure it will fail some basic test of usefulness.

What will Snow do?

Especially after Goss called it “one of those mysteries,” reporters will, I think, be asking lots of CIA director questions on Monday. Most will be about his chosen replacement, Gen. Michael Hayden, but some will be about Goss. The correspondents know how many shocked people there were in Washington on Friday. They know it was a resignation “under pressure,” as the Post said today.

Monday is also the day Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary, is supposed to take over in the briefing room. Thus it’s possible we will know right away whether Snow represents a change in White House strategy, or a corrective to the old strategy of de-certifying the press and rolling it back.

What will the new press secretary do when asked to provide an explanation that was glaringly missing on Friday?

If you’re Scott McClellan, who held his last briefing Friday, you sift through what’s already on the record about the resignation and choose a phrase or two that can be safely repeated, no matter what you’re asked. Rather than dodge the question, you refuse to recognize it, converting the back-and-forth of Q & A into a series of non-sequiturs.

The strategy is to add nothing to the public record, no matter what’s missing by way of explanations from the White House. Press nullification, I have called this. It’s not like spin. It’s non-communication from the podium, part of a larger strategy for expanding the “black,” opaque or simply unilluminated portions of the presidency.

Snow’s appointment (see my April 28 post on it) was described at the time as a shift in strategy to a more powerful press secretary who has the ear of the president, “walk-in privileges,” a seat at the table when policy is being decided, and a broker’s role between journalists and the White House.

We don’t know if any of that is true. But if it is true, Tony Snow will walk in to the Oval Office Monday morning and walk out with answers. He will argue that a complete default in reason-giving is unacceptable, and won’t fly. When reporters ask about the departure of Porter Goss he will have some sort of explanation for the mystery. It will put new information on the record, and he will make news with it.

Rather than pretend there’s nothing to be explained, Snow will by tone and manner accept the basic legitimacy of the question— and of the people asking it. The contrast with the last three years will be immediate, and the exchanges during the televised briefing will show that.

If things are really going to be different, that’s what we should expect to see.