President Bush on Wednesday named conservative commentator Tony Snow as White House press secretary, putting a new face on a troubled administration.

Tony Snow smiles as he is introduced by President Bush as his new Press Secretary in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington Wednesday, April 26, 2006. [AP]

Snow, a Fox news pundit and former speechwriter in the White House under Bush's father, replaced Scott McClellan who resigned after nearly three yeas on the job in a personnel shuffle intended to re-energize the Bush White House and lift the president's record-low approval ratings.

"My job is to make decisions and his job is to help explain those decisions to the press corps and the American people," Bush said, with Snow and McClellan at his side in the White House briefing room.

Bush also joked with reporters: "Tony already knows most of you and he's agreed to take the job anyway."

Snow, a Fox News commentator and speech-writer in the White House under Bush's father, has written and spoken frequently about the current president ¡ª not always in a complimentary way.

Snow called Bush "something of an embarrassment," a leader who has "lost control of the federal budget," the architect of a "listless domestic policy" and a man who has "a habit of singing from the political correctness hymnal."

Bush said he asked Snow about the critical remarks. "He said, `You should have heard what I said about the other guy.'"

On Wednesday, Snow thanked Bush for the job and told reporters, "Believe it or not, I want to work with you."

"These are times that are going to be very challenging ... and I'm very excited and I can't wait, and I thank all you guys for your forebearance and I look forward to working with you," Snow told reporters.

Snow, in an Associated Press interview Tuesday, didn't dispute that he's been a tough critic of Bush. "It's public record," he said. "I've written some critical stuff. When you're a columnist, you're going to criticize and you're going to praise."

A liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress, circulated a sampling of Snow's opinions, restricting the observations to those critical of the president. For example, it quoted Snow in September as writing, "No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives."

Snow is a smooth-talking Washington insider in a White House led by Texans proud of their outsider status. He is a familiar face to White House reporters and is known as a conservative partisan.

Snow had his colon removed last year and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer. He had a CAT scan last week and delayed a decision on the White House job while he consulted with his doctors.

Snow has been the host of the "Tony Snow Show" on Fox News Radio and "Weekend Live with Tony Snow" on the Fox News Channel. He served in the first Bush administration as speechwriting director and later as a deputy assistant to the president for media affairs.