President Bush's previous press secretaries, Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, Snow has no history with George W Bush, or, perhaps as important, no relationship with Karl Rove, "The Architect," Bush's chief political aide who reigns supreme over the communications operation.

The desperation of the administration, besieged on all sides, was put in sharp relief by the immediate overshadowing of Snow's appointment with the news bulletin that by the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has summoned Rove today back to the federal grand jury. Fitzgerald is investigating the leaking of the identity of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame Wilson as part of a political dirty trick against her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for his revelation that the rationale for the Iraq war was based on disinformation. Already Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has been indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. Rove has emphatically not been given a clean legal bill of health. He is not a witness in the case but a subject, remaining under scrutiny as Fitzgerald accumulates evidence that may potentially lead to his indictment.

Snow arrives in the West Wing at a parlous moment. In the latest Gallup poll, Bush has plummeted to 32% approval, diving without any landing in sight. Rather than change any of his fundamental policies, he has dug himself deeper into his bunker.

The recent staff replacements at the White House, inserting secondary players in new chairs, has only the most superficial impact and signals Bush's entrenchment.

Snow's appointment is the latest chapter in the continuing diminishment of the White House press corps. Both Fleischer and McClellan were part of the Bush presidential campaign team in 2000 and came into the White House fully integrated as members of the original cast. Under the sway of the clever and nimble Fleischer, after September 11, the press corps was in almost every sense "embedded". It swung from excitedly parroting jingoism to asking "questions" at press conferences as though on Prozac. As the press slowly began to wake up, under the robotic gaze of McClellan, he tried to break up their questions by calling on a rightwing outrider strangely present in the pressroom named Jeff Gannon, who was revealed to be a gay prostitute. After that, the pressroom became increasingly raucous.

But the White House press corps' importance steadily decreased. It was compartmentalized as a repository for routine news releases and otherwise to be kept in its cage unfed. When the White House wanted to leak something significant, it gave the information to bigger reporters, like Judy Miller of the New York Times or Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.

Now, however, the White House is engaged in witch-hunts throughout the national security apparatus, searching for the sources of stories that they wanted to be kept secret such as the existence of the CIA's "black site" prisons holding thousands of detainees and the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance outside the legal purview of the Foreign Intelligence Security Court. Last week, a CIA agent was fired for contact with a member of the press.

Tony Snow, a speechwriter for the elder Bush, is a fairly reliable conservative but not a hardened movement cadre. His personality on Fox was far more professional and congenial than gargoyles like the paranoid narcissist Bill O'Reilly or the shrill partisan Sean Hannity. Perhaps that is why Fox News management pushed Snow from his television show into radio. The affable Snow enters his post as the attack on the press enters a newly dangerous phase. But on his first day, his task will be to explain Karl Rove's appearance before the grand jury.

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