Press Briefing by Tony Snow

As for the primary election in Connecticut last night, I know there’s a lot of concern and interest about that. Democratic voters in Connecticut have made their choice, and they have chosen Ned Lamont over Senator Lieberman. Just a couple of observations. Key leaders in the national Democratic Party have made it clear — let me back up. This is a defining moment in some ways for the Democratic Party. I know a lot of people have tried to make this a referendum on the President; I would flip it. I think instead it’s a defining moment for the Democratic Party, whose national leaders now have made it clear that if you disagree with the extreme left in their party they’re going to come after you. And it is probably worth trying to trace through some of the implications of that position, because it is clearly going to be one of the central issues as we get ready for the election campaign this year, that is, the mid-term elections.

You know, I have refrained from commenting on the primary in Conn. I really felt it wasn’t my place to try to tell the citizens there how they should vote…I still don’t. But the key to this is, the people have now spoken. And now, Joe Lieberman is acting like the Republicans, if you don’t like the results…hey, issue a signing statement that basically says you’ll just ignore them.

I am from Texas and you see what Texas has given the US of A (sorry folks), between Bush and Delay we don’t need much more input from Texas in this generation. And to tell the truth the crop of politicians we are raising in the Lone Star State really are pathetic…they make George W look good folks, so run, don’t walk if you see another Texan coming onto the national scene. It just might be time to check out the requirements for asylum in Canada (at least the weather will be good, even with global warming.

First, let’s think about Iraq. One of the positions is that we need to leave Iraq — we need to do it on a timetable, and we need to do it soon. It’s worth walking through the consequences of that position. First, simply to walk away on a timetable without examining the conditions on the ground and without making sure that you have the ability for the Iraqis to stand up and also assert sovereignty over their territory and have a freestanding democracy would create a power vacuum and encourage terrorists not only in Iraq, but throughout the region and throughout the world that one of the problems that often besets democracies, which is impatience in hard times, in fact serves as a motivation for terror groups. Osama bin Laden some years ago said that one of the keys is that if you simply stay at terror long enough, the West is too weak, he said the Americans were too weak, and would stand down.

Now here we go again, did you notice how we went from the Democratic Party to Iraq. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t this Bush’s War? I suppose the reason this week for not finding the weapons of mass destruction is that they were all blown up during the “shock and awe”…and where does this administration get of quoting Osama? Had they spent as much money and time chasing that agenda…oops, I almost said we might have found him. God, this bunch of incompetents still couldn’t have completed that mission…