why is this man smiling?

Somewhere, off in the distance, someone must have heard a faint echo of Ruffins's iconic predecessor, Louis Armstrong, circa 1957, when he rebuffed President Eisenhower and canceled a U.S. State Department tour to the Soviet Union because of riots in Little Rock, Ark., over school integration. "The way they are treating my people in the South," Armstrong told newspaper reporters, "the government can go to hell."

Still, there was the comforting news that, come the next election, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow can return his full attention to playing flute and covering Doobie Brothers hits.