Milbank: Reality bites

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank dished about White House press operations on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" last night after Olbermann played a clip of White House press secretary Tony Snow being challenged by CBS newsman Bill Plante over the definition of the term "civil rights:"

OLBERMANN: Big picture here. We had dictionary time with Tony Snow at that news conference. We got this memo from the communications director, Dan Bartlett, to the press. He‘s described all the progress that the White House has made on everything from Iraq to immigration, as if we, you know, we‘ve been out or something for the last five years.

But does the—does the administration, the White House, still believe its main, if not only, problem is getting its message out correctly?

MILBANK: Well, I don‘t think that they believe that. But it‘s the only thing that they can do something about right now. So I—you had this sort of unfortunate thing where Dan Bartlett‘s memo says the economy is flourishing, and then the market‘s down 200 points today. It‘s very hard to control reality.