Another Day With That Slippery Varmint McClellan

[Bob Geiger]

From our It-Can't-Hurt-To-Ask Department, here's an intrepid reporter at yesterday's White House press briefing actually asking spokesman Scott "The Lyin' King" McClellan for official comment on soaring oil-company profits in the face of crippling gas prices for consumers.

What gall! Let's listen...

Q: The President talked a little bit about gas prices this morning. I think Exxon had profits of $36 billion last year. The President talked about price gouging. Does he think that the oil companies have engaged in price gouging, and are you looking at that?

McClellan: Well, what he said was that the government has a responsibility to make sure that we are watching carefully and that we investigate any possible price gouging that could be going on.

I think after the hurricanes last year, there was concern that maybe there was some price gouging. And the Department of Energy worked with states, and I think there were a few bad actors that they found, but most people they found were acting responsibly when it came to gas prices and addressing the problems caused by the damage of the hurricanes.

But the President is concerned about the impact high gas prices have on families and workers and small businesses. And that's what he was talking about today. It is like another tax on families, and it is a drag on our strong economy. And so the President has outlined an initiative to break our addiction to oil. We have to address the root causes of high energy prices. And to do that, we have to wean ourselves off foreign crude. And the President has talked about that repeatedly. That's why he's laid out a plan to transform the way we power our cars and our trucks and our homes and our businesses, and to look to alternative sources of energy and develop new technologies to address these issues going forward.

There's some steps that people can take in the short-term to address these issues, but the President is concerned about this issue and we urge -- rising prices at the pump should create even greater urgency within the Congress to act on the plan that the President outlined in his State of the Union address.

That's the whole "answer" and, no, I didn't omit one word. It's a little like playing Where's Waldo: Can you find the answer to the original question? I know I can't.

But you have to admire the reporter. It takes a lot of blind faith to ask a straightforward question about Big Oil raking in the dough, while Americans are being asked to cancel their summer vacations to conserve fuel, and expect a real answer from these guys.

Now let's move on to the hypocrisy of a White House that has claimed all along to take the opinions of military officers on the ground in Iraq as gospel but now slaps aside their opinions when they say Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is an incompetent fool.

Q: Scott, you talk about the views of these retired generals being well-known, and yet it seemed like the President immediately discounted those views by coming out with his statement, even though these are commanders on the ground. And every time we bring up those retired generals and the views they had about Secretary Rumsfeld, you talk about the generals who didn't have those views. Does the President just simply discount these views? It appeared he did.

McClellan: No, in fact, I think he expressed otherwise in his comments. I don't know how you're drawing that conclusion.

Q: Because he immediately came out and said he supported Donald Rumsfeld, even though these generals had questions about Donald Rumsfeld and, in fact, had called for his --

McClellan: Well, but I think I would go back and look at what he said in the Rose Garden a short time ago because I did not read anything into that that you are.

Q: And you can't read into the fact that on Friday, immediately he came out, after there were six generals who came forward?

McClellan: He felt it was important to make a strong statement reiterating his full support for the Secretary of Defense. And that's why he issued the statement.

Q: But he had no interest, as Victoria said --

McClellan: And the President called the Secretary of Defense that morning, around 10:00 a.m., to let him know.

Q: And you don't think that's immediately saying, you guys are wrong?

McClellan: I think you're drawing too broad of an interpretation from the comments that he made, and I think that the comments he made actually said otherwise. He said, people are expressing their views, he hears those views, he listens to those views, but he made very clear --

Q: -- an immediate statement saying --

McClellan:-- but he made very clear where he stood. Well, he thought it was important to do so, Martha, for the reasons that we stated in that statement, as well as the ones that I mentioned prior to that statement going out last week.

Q: I guess -- how are we to look at that and say that he's not listening to the advice he wants to hear, or the people, the voices he wants to hear that back up his position, and not commanders on the ground who seem to have a different one?

McClellan: Again, there you go, over-interpreting things and drawing the wrong conclusions from what he has said. That's not at all what he was saying.

All right, thank you.

At which point, McClellan ended the briefing and slid out of the room on a thin film of slime. Just in time too... That other reporter was going to ask about those generous Republican donors in the big oil companies again.

You can reach Bob Geiger at [e-mail]

[shenmue]

1. McClellan couldn't give a straight answer...

if he were asked, "Is your first name Scott?"

:dunce:

[Canuckistanian]

2. Drawing the wrong conclusions again. Damn.

Some day, the press corps will get it right. And on that day, Scottie's head will explode.

And welcome to DU! But I see you're already quite the writer.

:hi:

[acmejack]

3. welcome to the community Bob!