"Thank God for blogs," said White House Press Secretary Tony Snow this afternoon, commenting on the Bush administration's communications efforts. The comment came in the course of a conference call for bloggers conducted this afternoon by Snow and Brett McGurk [pictured here], the National Security Council's Director for Iraq, giving a preview of President Bush's speech of tonight on Iraq. I had the opportunity to participate on behalf on NewsBusters.
Snow described the problem with the traditional media - generously I would say - not in terms of bias but as a function of the "if it bleeds it leads" tendency.
Snow indicated that he reads the blogs represented in the conference call. It's clear that the White House views blogs, NewsBusters among them, asAmong the encouraging details emerging from the conference call:
- Combined Iraqi and US forces will remain in Baghdad neighborhoods "24/7" once they had been pacified, to ensure that security gains would be enduring.
- Iraqi forces are expected to assume primary security responsibility in all of Iraq's 18 provinces by November, 2007.
Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net