Wasn't Snow in on the debacle of the Dubai Ports deal, Harriet Meirs and the immigration "reform" legislation? I can't imagine what a Tony Snow could have to say that I would be remotely interested in listening to.

Any self-respecting Conservative would have tendered his resignation during any one of those Bush initiatives.

It took a great deal of effort to drive forth the Andy Cards and the Scott McClellans of this administration, and Snow was supposed to usher in some Conservative sanity to an administration that had badly lost its way. Instead of introducing a much needed respite from the self-inflicted disasters of Bush and Condi, Snow took it upon himself to go out there and DEFEND such nonsense.

And he's your "annual dinner speaker!"

I tell ya' what: Let Julie Ponzi be the speaker, let her give the address, I'll guarantee she'll raise more money than that bore Snow.

Dan: Thanks for your thoughtful comment. You continue to surprise me with your intelligence, insight, wit, and general goodwill. I will continue to like Julie, despite your good word on her behalf. In case you miss the meaning of the above, I do desire that we may be better strangers.

I'm sorry, but I'm seriously disappointed in Tony Snow's performance as White House Press Sec. Perhaps you're inclined to extend him a pass, you're surely free to do so. But many a Conservative was and still is appalled at his performance, or rather the lack thereof. If he was an empty set that would have been bad enough. But he was worse than that, for he KNOWINGLY allowed his name and his Conservative reputation to be used as camoflauge by an administration that was doing its best to ram home a decidedly anti-Conservative agenda.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't cut it where I come from.

That went beyond policy questions, and became a question of something much more fundamental, something non-negotiable, or at least should be, and that's character.

Or is that too old fashioned? Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm too much of an anachronism, but when you're a Conservative, when you have a Conservative reputation, and you're in an administration that is pursuing anti-Conservative ends, ----------------------------- you resign. You pull a Duff Cooper and you go out there and air your grievances. You come clean, you level with the American people, you level with people like me who used to hold him in such high regard. I was one of those people ecstatic when he entered the administration. Little did I suspect that he would allow himself to become the voice and the face of widespread incompetence. Instead of delivering a Conservative imprint to a White House that was adrift, and adrift during a time of war, and adrift when the tides of public opinion were developing into ravenous rip tides, instead of doing anything to address that situation, Tony Snow lent his face, his presence and his name to a decidedly unconservative, Republican administration.

Yea, I'm still livid at his non-performance in The White House. How couldn't I be?

I'm from Pennsylvania, and we're still in the midst of the fall-out from the loss of men like Rick Santorum and Curt Weldon, all because of the demonstrable incompetence of guys like Tony Snow. How is this nation supposed to make good the loss of such stalwarts as Santorum and Weldon. Guys like Tony Snow led our party into a meatgrinder in '06. And have left us badly weakened going into a crucial showdown this November. Snow and others have left America UNIQUELY vulnerable to the rhetoric of men like Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Or are we to overlook all of that, lest we be considered unpleasant. Oh what a weighty cross to bear, to be deemed unpleasant. Issues desperately in need of being broached are left unaddressed, all because Conservatives deem broaching those issues bad form. Bad form, eh? I've violated the tone of the Regimental Mess, is that it? And we're all just to let his incompetence slide, as if it meant nothing, and left no permanent injury to the nation. Is that what you would have? Pretend that it never happened, is that it? Just go through the motions and toss around the pleasantries, -------------------------- is that really what this country needs right now? More meaningless cocktail chatter? Is that really going to cut it? You're admonition reminds me of an anecdote from the Battle of Britain, where a senior officer reproached a fighter pilot for having the temerity and "bad form" of "talking shop in the mess."

Tony Snow had his chance to stand up and be counted in a major way, and guys like me were hoping and praying that he would do so, -------------------------------- but he took a pass.

The stakes could not have been higher, and he took a pass. The guy took a pass when his country DESPERATELY needed somebody, anybody to speak up within that White House.

And you wonder why I take it personal.

The country is at war, men are dying in the field, a good chunk of the country is willing to embrace defeat, and during such a time Tony Snow rose to be White House Press Sec in a White House wholly adrift. And during his brief tenure, during his brief moment when he had the chance to speak for scores of millions of Americans concerned about the drift of events, -------------------- what did he do, what did he say, how forcefully did he speak to the President of the United States?

History is going to demand answers to those questions, even if such a one as myself is rebuked for having the bad form to air them now, and air them in a fashion that betrays a bit of the anger and the raw emotion attending the issues of the day, and the questions of the hour.

So consider this junior officer rebuked, consider him reprimanded, know that a black has been put down in his ledger, and know that he knows it too.