Is the Press getting their Feces Cohesive?

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan June 17, 2004.

Q:...you were saying this morning that the findings of the 9/11 Commission, which definitively say that there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, are completely consistent with your position that there was such a collaborative relationship. And I'm just wondering if you could explain how those two disparate thoughts are completely consistent.

MR. McCLELLAN: Sure. If you go back and look at what the September 11th Commission said, they talked about how there had been high-level contacts between the regime in Iraq and al Qaeda. And they specifically pointed out to contacts between Iraqi intelligence officials and bin Laden in Sudan; and they talked about other contacts. And if you go back and look at what Secretary Powell outlined before the United Nations, this was back in February of 2003, he talked about how we know -- this is quote, "We know members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service." So he talked about some of contacts in his presentation to the United Nations.

Q: Right, but the 9/11 --

MR. McCLELLAN: And that is perfectly consistent with what the September 11th Commission talked about in their report yesterday.

Q: But here's where the two positions diverge, and that is that the 9/11 Commission says, yes, there were these contacts, but they did not result in any kind of collaborative relationship. It means the same thing as you and I contact each all the time, but I don't think anybody here at the White House would account you of having --

MR. McCLELLAN: John, we made it clear a long time ago --

Q: -- a collaborative relationship with me.

Or just read the excerpts over at Tom Tomorrow.


I have two things to say:

1. *snicker*
2. About Fripping Time, mainstream press. What, were you waiting for an engraved invitation?