Friday, June 16, 2006

I GUESS THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE TO HIM

In the self-blame department, White House spokesman Tony Snow had a political doozy.

...Last week, Snow gave reporters a routine account of a meeting President Bush conducted with members of Congress on Iraq. In the retelling, Snow confused one African-American Democratic female lawmaker for another.

"Cynthia McKinney made the point yesterday in the meeting with the president that the one thing they had gotten from generals there were thorough and honest assessments of what's going on," Snow said then.

But it was [Sheila] Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, who had made the point. McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia, wasn't at the meeting. Reporters were unaware of Snow's mix-up because they had never seen the private session.

Snow said his mistake "prompted a phone call from Representative Jackson Lee, who was absolutely charming, and we had a wonderful little conversation."...

Despite the comity, the incident was poorly timed for Snow, the former news commentator who, in his first day on the job last month, raised eyebrows with his use of the phrase "tar baby."

"I don't want to hug the tar baby," Snow said at the time, sidestepping a question on an intelligence program that was in the news....


--Houston Chronicle

Er, both McKinney and Lee have been in Congress for more than a decade. I think Tony Snow has had enough time to learn how to tell them apart.

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