Raucous long goodbye for Tony Snow
By Tabassum Zakaria
Wed Sep 12, 5:55 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House press secretary Tony Snow jousted with reporters in his final televised briefing on Wednesday, which turned raucous when reporters in back rows protested they were not allowed questions before it was called to a close.
"This is your last briefing. You want to go out well," one reporter yelled.
"Please, be as rude as you want," President George W. Bush's spokesman said.
But he agreed to stay longer at the podium, joking, "this will be an open-ended commitment" -- a play on Democratic criticisms of Bush's Iraq strategy.
Snow, whose last day at the White House is Friday, started off by saying, "you know, everybody talks about what a horrible job it is to brief the press, I love these briefings and I'm really going to miss them."
The former television commentator has been battling cancer, but has said he is leaving for financial, not health, reasons. He will be replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino, as the president's press secretary.
Iraq questions dominated the session, on the eve of Bush's televised speech on Iraq and after congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
Snow had a lot to say in defense of Petraeus, the president and progress in Iraq. But little about Bush's Thursday speech.
Asked whether Bush was going to put forward what he considered a new and changed strategy, Snow replied: "He's changed strategy every day."
He called the notion that the president's strategy was static "an amazing canard" and said "only a crazy person would fail to adjust strategy on a regular basis, based on the realities on the ground."
Snow and reporters went around and around about Democratic criticism that Bush's war strategy was an "open-ended commitment," prompting Snow at one point to declare with outstretched arms: "I give up. I give up."
