By The Associated Press Mon Jul 11, 5:26 PM ETThis is just the beginning of past comments made by McClellan; he's said plenty in the past (see the link for more). So, for that matter, has Pres. Bush in his defense of Rove, et al.
Some of the denials, other comments, at media briefings by White House spokesman Scott McClellan when asked by reporters whether President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was involved in the leak of a CIA officer's identity:
Sept. 29, 2003
Q: You said this morning, quote, 'The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved.' How does he know that?
A: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. ... I've said that it's not true. ... And I have spoken with Karl Rove.
Q: It doesn't take much for the president to ask a senior official working for him, to just lay the question out for a few people and end this controversy today.
A: Do you have specific information to bring to our attention? ... Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper? We'd spend all our time doing that.'
Q: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, 'Did you ever have this information?'
A: I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was."
The question now is: who was ignorant of the facts, and who was lying?
The reaction is already intense and growing, as it should be. Lying from the White House is nothing new; that doesn't mean it should be tolerated. The stonewalling from the White House in recent days is a sad shame of silence. David Gregory, reporting for NBC, put it directly to Scott McClellan:
Scott, I mean, just -- I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?Getting no comment (except a very redundant "I remember well what I said"), Gregory then asked:
Was [Rove] involved, or was he not? Because, contrary to what you told the American people, he did, indeed, talk about [Joe Wilson's] wife, didn't he?Dan Froomkin provies a good description of yesterday's press briefing, where this exchange took place. Froomkin also compiles reactions from other corporate media outlets, from which we learn that McClellan refused to answer 35 questions!, and offers his own analysis (he calls it "astonishing"). One of the unanswered questions was: "Does the President have confidence in his Chief of Staff?" Froomkin also provides a link to the text & video of the briefing. It's quite a show.
Wow - just to add a little levity - or maybe I should find out who the reporter asking the question is - but someone asked if Pres. Bush would consider nominating "former Law School Professor Bill Clinton" to the Supreme Court!
Finished watching the briefing. Sad. Outrageous. And insulting.
A short summary of McClellan's answer to all questions about Karl Rove leaking top secret information: "Again, you're asking me to comment on an on-going investigation and I'm not going to do that."
He sounded like a broken record. Funny, he didn't mind responding when the investigation was on-going over the past 2 years, when he could lie and get away with it.
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