From Holden:

Today Pony Blow explained the veto process.

MR. SNOW: Here’s how it works — because I know a lot of you have questions. There will be no photographers, no ceremony. What the President will do is, in his office, he will sign a veto message, he will hand it to a clerk, who will convey to a clerk of the House, and then you go through the formalities of announcing a message from the President and, at some point, the House will vote on the veto.

Q Is there a reason why he’s not having photographers in, at least?

MR. SNOW: Because he doesn’t feel it’s appropriate. He’s signing a veto.

Q Is that true of all vetoes? I mean, he’s never vetoed anything.

MR. SNOW: Well, then I guess we don’t have a precedent, do we?

Sounds like the Assministration is pretty confident about this veto, no?

Er, um, no. No, they are not confident at all, as evidenced by this snippy exchange later in the gaggle.

Q Is the President concerned that his veto of the stem cell bill is going to hurt Republicans running in fall elections?

MR. SNOW: Not a bit.

Q He doesn’t feel as though it will hurt?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q Why not?

MR. SNOW: And I’ll tell you what, it’s worth pointing out one thing — actually several things on stem cells.

[snip]

Q But it often appears in some of the reporting and some of the discussion out there that the President is holding back scientific progress.

MR. SNOW: Wrong.

Q How do you —

MR. SNOW: You’re just flat wrong. Just flat wrong. I mean, that is basically an attempt to substitute an insult for an argument. I’ve given you the argument and I’ve rebutted the insult.

Obsession Continues, Read More…

From Holden:

Israel appears to be blameless.

Q Is there any movement on the Beirut front, or any change in our policy?

MR. SNOW: No, our policy hasn’t changed. Our hopes haven’t changed, either — which is that we hope that there will be a cessation of violence in Lebanon.

Q How do you expect to get that?

MR. SNOW: Maybe Hezbollah will listen the cries of the Lebanese people and the international community and cease violence and stop the provocations. Should that happen, it provides an opportunity for people —

Now war here. Who are you gonna believe, Pony Blow or your lying eyes?

Q Does the President, Tony, believe that this is as much the United States’ war as it is Israel’s war?

MR. SNOW: No. What the President believes is — what’s interesting about this, David, is that you’ve got a situation where Hezbollah, I think, miscalculated.

[snip]

Q I don’t think you really answered the part about why is this not our war?

MR. SNOW: Why would it be our war? I mean, it’s not on our territory. This is a war in which the United States — it’s not even a war. What you have are hostilities, at this point, between Israel and Hezbollah. I would not characterize it as a war.

Pony Blow stumbles upon the truth.

Q Just one final one on this. Why shouldn’t the President be the one to mount an aggressive diplomacy, pick up the phone, call Assad of Syria and say, put an end to this, and start negotiating directly with the Syrians?

MR. SNOW: Because the track record stinks.

Interesting. Pony still does not have the proper security clearances that would enable him to do his job. Why did they rush to shove Little Scotte out the door?

Q If the reports are correct, and we, in fact, didn’t know about the weapons advances that Hezbollah has made, is there some frustration or embarrassment within the intelligence community at the moment?

MR. SNOW: Well, you’ve asked me one of those “ifs,” and then the answer is, I don’t know what the knowledge was about intelligence; therefore, I can’t answer it. Sorry, Victoria.

Q Well, it seems certainly according to the reports that we didn’t know that they had made significant advances.

MR. SNOW: Again, I don’t know.

Q Do you know whether — do you know?

MR. SNOW: No, I don’t know what the intelligence is. I literally don’t know what the intelligence was before the fact, and until my security clearance clears, I’m not going to have access to it. I’m told it’s a few more weeks. No, that’s true. You come here, you’re a new guy, you’ve got to get the clearances.

Your Daily Les.

Q Thank you very much. The Washington Post reported, “The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that a fired whistle blower could not sue the President without any case citation.” I’d like to know, do you know the name of the case? And do you agree or disagree with the Republican National Committee’s description of the Valerie and Joe Wilson lawsuit of the Vice President as “ridiculous”?

MR. SNOW: I can’t answer either of those, Lester. Go back and get the citation on the ’82 — was that back in the EPA days?

Q Well, I was quoting The Washington Post. They didn’t cite it. You don’t know the —

MR. SNOW: No, I only sporadically service their research arm.