White House Press Secretary Tony Snow may have been the only person in the Bush administration relieved to learn that political pressures on the issue of immigration forced President Bush to deliver a major address on the subject Monday night. The primetime speech allowed Snow, who was appointed in late April by Bush to replace Scott McClellan as “The First Flak,” to push back his first televised White House press briefing from Monday to Tuesday, thereby buying him one more day to prepare his public debut in what has to be one of the toughest jobs in politics.

If Snow’s first off-camera briefing (commonly referred to as a “press gaggle”) on Friday was any indication, he truly would stand to benefit from the extra 24 hours. To put it simply, Snow tanked … and tanked in a job where first impressions with the finicky White House press corps mean a lot. When briefing reporters for the first time, he flip-flopped on the starting time, switched the location to a less accommodating venue (admitting “this is just a mess”) and fell back on talking points because, well, “as the new kid on the block, I’m not fully briefed into everything.” White House reporters may have respected Snow’s humility, but, at the end of the day, they still demand answers.