{"id":5983,"date":"2005-12-02T15:59:40","date_gmt":"2005-12-02T20:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5983"},"modified":"2005-12-02T15:59:40","modified_gmt":"2005-12-02T20:59:40","slug":"mcclellans-al-jazeera-dodge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mcclellans-al-jazeera-dodge\/","title":{"rendered":"McClellan’s al-Jazeera dodge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juan Cole made the case<\/a> this week that it’s entirely plausible that Bush really did tell British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he wanted to bomb the Al-Jazeera offices<\/a> in Qatar. Cole makes a pretty compelling argument, but I keep waiting for the inevitable, harshly-worded, unequivocal denial from the White House. And I’m still waiting.<\/p>\n

The WaPo’s Dan Froomkin noted<\/a> today that reporters have offered the Bush gang a few opportunities to deny the president made the remark — or, at a minimum, that Bush was speaking in jest and it’s foolish to suggest otherwise — but the White House refuses to comment. In fact, at a briefing<\/a> this week, Scott McClellan actually resorted to playing dumb.<\/p>\n

Q: Two more Middle East-related questions. I know you’ve been asked before about the so-called al Jazzier [sic<\/i>] memo, but Europeans are making quite a big deal about it. Can you assure them that even if the President did say when he was elected said he was doing that in jest?<\/p>\n

McClellan: Can I assure them what?<\/p>\n

Q: That if the President really did make those comments, he was doing so in jest?<\/p>\n

McClellan: Make what comments?<\/p>\n

Q: About allegedly bombing al Jazeera —<\/p>\n

McClellan: Any such notion that we would engage in that kind of activity is just absurd.<\/p>\n

Q: Well, do you know if the comments were made?<\/p>\n

McClellan: I don’t know what comments you’re referring to. I haven’t seen any comments quoted.<\/p>\n

Q: Somebody said that they had a memo, or that they took notes during —<\/p>\n

McClellan: Let me just repeat for you, Connie. Any such notion that America would do something like that is absurd.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think I understand the basic strategy. When the reports first surfaced in the domestic press, McClellan said he wasn’t interested in “dignifying something so outlandish<\/a>.” That was a denial about actual military intentions — but not about the leaked notes\/transcript that made this controversial in the first place.
\n
\nMcClellan can keep denying that the U.S. would bomb the Arab network, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are notes from a presidential meting in which, apparently, Bush said he wanted to do just that.<\/p>\n

I can appreciate the awkwardness. If McClellan claims Bush never made the remarks, and two British officials can produce notes showing the opposite, the press corps won’t appreciate being lied to. If he claims Bush was just kidding around about bombing a civilian journalistic institution in a friendly Middle Eastern country, the president would look like something of a jackass. As a result, we’re left with gems such as “Make what comments?”<\/p>\n

This is silly. In November alone, the White House communications office was so worried about various media reports that it issued seven<\/i> “setting the record straight<\/a>” press releases. Before November, they’d issued only one of these in the previous year. It’s an apparent sign that the Bush gang is anxious respond to news accounts they believe are misleading or inaccurate. So why not say why these al-Jazeera stories are wrong?<\/p>\n

Denials or no denials, the stories<\/a> are<\/a> running<\/a> anyway<\/a>. McClellan should probably think of something to say about them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juan Cole made the case this week that it’s entirely plausible that Bush really did tell British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he wanted to bomb the Al-Jazeera offices in Qatar. Cole makes a pretty compelling argument, but I keep waiting for the inevitable, harshly-worded, unequivocal denial from the White House. And I’m still waiting. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}