Scott McClellan’s Clown Show
You have to watch the video of yesterday’s press gaggle at the White House — before someone at the White House does and takes it down!
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, you see, has his talking point about whether or not Karl Rove is the person who blew the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to settle a petty political score against her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson:
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked relating to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point. And as I’ve previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it.
Unfortunately for Scott, the reporters at the press briefing have better memories than he does:
Q Scott, if I could — if I could point out, contradictory to that statement, on September 29th, 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one who said, if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation is when the President made his comment that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved. So why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you’ve suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, “We’re not going to comment on an ongoing investigation”?
Whoops!
What follows is several minutes of sheer ineptitude as McClellan tries to stick to his one talking point (“we’re not going to comment on an ongoing investigation”) as the reporters press him harder and harder to explain why he only won’t comment now that the blame points to Rove (“you’re not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke out about Joseph Wilson’s wife. So don’t you owe the American public a fuller explanation? Was he involved, or was he not?”).
Highly recommended.
Bonus: McClellan’s mangled pronunciation of the names of Balkan war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic is comedy gold.
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Comments
Sandy Smith
July 12, 2005
8:23 am
Actually, Tubby got Mladic’s name right. It’s “Srebrenica” that he mispronounced consistently (the “c” in that case gets a “ts” sound).
Jason Lefkowitz
July 12, 2005
9:11 am
Whoops, my bad. I guess I was blinded by his incredible mangling of Kar-
Karo-
Karoobie-
🙂
Just Curious
July 21, 2005
10:42 pm
So are you saying that if a special prosecutor conducting an investigation made a point to ask you to stop discussing the investigation publicly, you would still answer questions about it?
Sorry, I’m just trying to understand your point.
Jason Lefkowitz
July 22, 2005
2:01 am
“So are you saying that if a special prosecutor conducting an investigation made a point to ask you to stop discussing the investigation publicly, you would still answer questions about it?”
Sure is awfully convenient that they made that request (which we only have McClellan’s word for) right when it would most benefit Karl Rove.
I’m just sayin’.