This morning, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) unveiled his resolution calling for a congressional censure of Bush over his warrantless-search program. Shortly thereafter, Scott McClellan told reporters what he thought of the idea.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Feingold’s move “has more to do with 2008 politics than anything else.” […]
“I think it does raise the question, how do you fight and win the war on terrorism?” McClellan said. “And if Democrats want to argue that we shouldn’t be listening to al Qaeda communications, it’s their right and we welcome the debate. We are a nation at war.”
Looking over the rest of this Reuters article, there’s no fact-checking for McClellan’s claim and there’s no quote from the other side to respond to the argument. It’s not even a “he said, she said” — it’s just “he said.”
And of course, what he said was wrong. It’s a tired and predictable White House response, but the notion that Democrats don’t want to intercept al Qaeda communications is absurd. McClellan knows this. When he levies such a charge publicly, he’s either a) intentionally trying to mislead people; or b) is intentionally uninformed. It’s just shameless.
Glenn Greenwald argues that it’s up to Reuters to say so.
It is completely unacceptable, and a total abdication of their responsibility, for the media to pass along the White House’s factually false claim that Democrats oppose eavesdropping on Al Qaeda. The media does not need to, and should not, take sides in the NSA debate, but it ought to inform American citizens about what the arguments actually are and what the debate is about. If it doesn’t do that, what does it do?
That’s a very good question. McClellan offers reporters these demonstrably false claims because he knows, more often than not, he’ll get away with it.