Thursday, November 10, 2005

After Further Review...

Apparently they aren't into Instant Replay at the White House. I can sympathize - I've always felt that video replay basically gives the officials two chances to screw up instead of just one.

But when it comes to official transcripts, it can be hard to explain why the documents can't be squared with the video. Editor and Publisher has the story complete with a humorously snarky headline, and American Progress has the video.

Doubly hilarious because the dispute is over a quote about "accuracy."

Now I'd like to give a caveat here - it could very well be that the White House is right, and McClellan did say "I don't think that's accurate" and the "I don't think that's" wasn't picked up by the microphone. But this is a good example of the "calling in sick when you're well" phenomenon. If I call in sick to work once a week, and then get some rare disease, my employer is going to think I'm goldbricking even though I'm actually sick.

The White House spins, prevaricates, obfuscates and denies reality so often that it's impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt in a situation like this.

Too bad for them.

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