The Dance
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is good about posting long segments of the daily White House briefing when it's interesting. Today's post is a good example (excerpt below). I wonder if this means the whole press corps is growing a spine, or is it still just Helen Thomas? I'm so tired of the dance that is this Administration. I know it's the job of the spokesperson to never say "you're right; what were we thinking?" but it must suck to answer questions on behalf of a team that takes so many indefensible positions.

The truth is obvious: the President doesn't want to help the 9/11 Commission because it will make him look bad. He wants to sit with them for as little time as possible because he doesn't want to answer their questions directly, and it's easier to squirm for an hour than for longer. And he wants to limit the questioners to 2 to minimize the number of actual witnesses. Of course, this interview should be extensive and it should be broadcast for the world to see like the Clinton blow job testimony. But the dance is designed to hide the truth as best as possible. It comes out sounding like today's briefing and it makes me crazy. Here's one of the better moments:

"QUESTION: What the commission is asking for in that one hour is the entire commission, not just the chair and vice chair. Are you not agreeing to that --

McCLELLAN: The request came from the chairman and vice chairman, and the President looks forward to meeting privately with --

QUESTION: I know. But they followed up by saying that they want --

McCLELLAN: -- looks forward to meeting privately with the chairman and vice chairman to provide them with the necessary information.

QUESTION: Why not all of them? What's the problem?

McCLELLAN: Helen, we have great confidence that the chairman and vice chairman can share all that information with the rest of the commission.

QUESTION: Why do they have to share it? The others have ears.

McCLELLAN: They're going to have a public report. I talked about how this is extraordinary for a President to sit down with a legislative body such as the 9/11 Commission.

QUESTION: What's the President's problem, really, with meeting all of them?

QUESTION: It's a legislative body? I'm sorry.

McCLELLAN: There are lots of ways -- one, I have always said that there are lots of ways -- it's legislatively created, that's what I'm referring to. There are lots of ways to provide the commission with the information they need to do their work. And we have worked -- we have bent over backwards to provide unprecedented cooperation to the commission.

QUESTION: Not from what we hear."

Remember when Howard Dean said that he was sealing his Governor records so the press wouldn't find anything embarassing in there? (He said he was kidding, but still...) Would it kill McClellan one time to say "We're not cooperating fully, that's true. But it's only to minimize the chances either that fault will be found with the Administration or that the President will say something that could otherwise embarass the Administration."