Friday
Expectation managment
See David Corn and Kevin Drum on why Pentagon Spokesman Larry Di Rita isn't credible. In short, he said there were no credible allegations of Koran desecration, it turns out that there were such allegations and that some of them were true.
Now, I can recall the episode of West Wing where CJ told the press that there were no plans for a particular military strike and it turned out that there were such plans. But she wasn't lying, because Leo made a deliberate decision to keep her out of the loop. Maybe Di Rita has also been kept completely out of the loop, which is the charitable explanation for his remarks, as opposed to him being a liar. But even if that is the case, why should the Press ever attend another briefing he gives? They have no reason to expect the truth from him. If they attend, at every breifing, every question should be, "What did you know and when did you know it?" This isn't the worst mendacity by a member of the Bush administration, but it is the most recent.
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Now, I can recall the episode of West Wing where CJ told the press that there were no plans for a particular military strike and it turned out that there were such plans. But she wasn't lying, because Leo made a deliberate decision to keep her out of the loop. Maybe Di Rita has also been kept completely out of the loop, which is the charitable explanation for his remarks, as opposed to him being a liar. But even if that is the case, why should the Press ever attend another briefing he gives? They have no reason to expect the truth from him. If they attend, at every breifing, every question should be, "What did you know and when did you know it?" This isn't the worst mendacity by a member of the Bush administration, but it is the most recent.
