Newly appointed White House press secretary Tony Snow is likely to prove the most entertaining public disaster of the Bush administration’s waning years. He’ll no doubt enjoy a honeymoon with the press, of which he’s more or less a member, but in the end, he’s stuck with defending the indefensible and explaining the inexplicable.

It’s no coincidence that the stolid Scott McClellan is out and Snow is in on the eve of campaign season for the 2006 elections. A common complaint among Republicans is that the White House hasn’t been getting their message out. Someone convinced Bush of that as well, or he wouldn’t have agreed to look beyond his immediate circle for help.

“Getting the message out” means something different to Bush than it does to his GOP critics. He’s convinced that his problems are the product of a misunderstanding; the reason he repeats himself ad nauseam isn’t because he’s dim, but because he thinks that the American people just don’t get it.

For Bush, then, Snow’s job is twofold: to paint the pig in colors that simply aren’t in McClellan’s palette, and to jolly the press along in a way that McClellan no longer can. Bush knows as well as anyone and far better than most how susceptible to flattery, jocularity and circuses reporters are, and he’ll be counting on Snow to deploy all of those devices in an effort to divert the press from their pursuit of scandals and lies so that The Message shines through.

GOP critics of the White House aren’t concerned about The Message: they’re concerned about The Democrats, most of whom are at the moment sitting around like spectators at the Battle of Bull Run as the administration and the Republican party implode. For them, Snow’s job is to deflect the press from the administration’s woes and, more importantly, to attack the president’s, and by extension the party’s, critics.

In other words, Snow was hired to be the point man in the campaign to retain control of Congress. It’s a political move, and as always, White House politics means Karl Rove. Past is prologue: if you want a preview of Snow’s future in the press room, look to Rove’s history. Snow is an attack dog.

It’s even money whether Snow can succeed in flummoxing the press long enough to do what he’s tasked with. You’ll never go broke underestimating the attention span of the press, and Snow has the advantage of a ready-made narrative about Democratic fecklessness that the press is always eager to tap. And as New York Times White House correspondent David Sanger demonstrated the other day, reporters in the press room are sensitive to the perception (among administration supporters) that doing their jobs makes them look like angry, petulant, grandstanding hacks. They’re ready to buy into an atmosphere of collegiality, something often mistaken by press critics as rolling over, with a new (and very large) talking head who hasn’t lied to them for years on end, yet.

It’s more fun to roll over. You get your belly rubbed. It feels good, and people smile.

The chances are equally good, though, that Snow’s handicaps — the president and the Republican Congress — will prove too great. Iraq isn’t going to get any better, Jack Abramoff isn’t going to get any more honest, Patrick Fitzgerald isn’t going to go away, Rumsfeld isn’t going to suddenly become sane, Bob Ney isn’t going to suddenly escape indictment, the gap in Medicare prescription coverage isn’t going to mend itself, and if the unthinkable indictment of Karl Rove comes down, Snow will be a suddenly and very lonely man.

So here’s the prediction: Snow gets a four-week honeymoon before some new administration stupidity or cupidity or flat ass evil emerges (Bush will see a 2% bounce in the polls during that month). His ego will get the better of him; the only question is who he’ll piss off first, the press or someone in the White House. He’ll attempt to use the increasing rancor in the press room to make reporters the issue, but it won’t work.

Administration officials and congressional sources will begin leaking negative stories about him. By the time August rolls around, the same people who wanted McClellan out will be suffering some serious buyer’s remorse, but it’ll be too late to shift gears: they’ll be stuck with Snow until the spring thaw.

Look for right-wing bloggers to wax ecstatic about Snow’s performance during that first month, followed by a slow descent into depression and speculation about how much a better choice Dennis Miller would have been. Or Ann Coulter. Or Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog.

Or Scott McClellan.

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