liveblogging Tony Snow on the Late Show with David Letterman

Tony Snow is quite tall. He's taller than Letterman by an inch or so and Letterman is 6'2. Wearing a light shirt, open collared, dark jacket. But of course, once he starts talking, he's largely full of it.

Letterman asks him if any reporters who were trying to start stuff and he said there was one who was always trying to instigate nuclear match-ups (David Gregory?) between countries. Now how could a reporter, asking a question, be responsible for two countries pointing nukes at one another? That's what countries do. Policy determines whether people point nukes at one another. If you have a nutjob as leader, perhaps he might force a confrontation. Otherwise, it's not going to happen. Certainly not because of a reporter.

Letterman wonders whether Bush's approval rating (he says/asks, what is it, 30 something; Snow agrees) bothers the White House. Snow says it could be better. How to make a 33% approval rating appear not so bad.....yeah, and the sky could be higher up. What does that mean? Snow babbles on about how a wartime President isn't popular. Uh huh....so Monkey Boy wasn't popular after initially hitting Afghanistan...through '03.....starts to slow down. Yeah, it has nothing to do with a quagmire in Iraq or a storm in New Orleans. And, uh, FDR (not sure if there were opinion polls then, but he was certainly very popular). Ike I believe was at least not too unpopular, even through the political minefields of high level political service. George Washington....very popular. Kennedy, popular in the very early days of Vietnamese involvement. Bush's daddy very popular during the Gulf War in '91. So it helps if the war is perceived to be for a somewhat noble cause. Yeah, I hate those unfortunate facts interfering with Tony Snow's unpaid PR work. I guess once a hack, always a hack.

Oh yeah, then when Letterman throws him a bone noting-perhaps this is a regurgitation of a right-wing talking point-that Bush is in person a decent guy (cough cough as long as you agree with him in everything cough cough) Snow notes that there are lots of practical jokes done in this administration. Well that's reassuring eh?

PBS' "The War"

Have spent too long today (OK, nearly 7 hours) watching Ken Burns' "The War". It is compelling, riveting stuff. As Burns says at the end of one of the episodes, he doesn't employ any talking heads to discuss it. He doesn't need any because the men who participated in it are still alive. He focuses on the stories of a few men whose stories are, well, emblematic. He goes into detail with the soldiers' families, in offering a look at the effect of war production on the economies of an area (Mobile, Alabama most specifically), and focuses on several towns-Sacramento, Waterbury CT, Mobile, and Luverne MN which provides the perspective on the war from big and little towns, east and west, industrial and rural. I'm still watching it because I did not get to see the shows when they were shown for the first time this past week. Still, the remembrances with the veterans, the film and still pictures, the accounts of the vets, are amazingly compelling and one doesn't hear the sometimes staid, removed, large-scale commentary on the strategy and tactics of the war plan. These are immediate, specific, graphic memories of a tragic (not that there is any other kind) war. It is most definitely required viewing.