That seems to be the question posed in today's NY Times. For the White House, lying is no big deal. The fact that the media puts up with and listens to a press secretary who lies to them is the bigger issue:
Under a barrage of sometimes angry questions from a press corps that feels it was lied to, he has been unwilling or unable to acknowledge that his previous statements are, to use a phrase famously invoked by a predecessor, inoperative. Yet he has offered no defense of them either, and has instead appealed to the better instincts of his journalistic inquisitors, a risky strategy in the midst of a criminal inquiry that has reached into the top ranks of the White House, but perhaps the only one available to him.How can anyone be confident with the relationship in that room?
"I'm very confident in the relationship that we have in this room, and the trust that has been established between us," he said at his daily briefing on Monday, in response to questions from David Gregory of NBC News about whether his credibility with reporters and the public was in doubt.
The reality is that Scottie can't tell the truth because it impacts his real boss, not Bush, but Rove:
Among other things, for Mr. McClellan to state openly that he was misled would put him publicly at odds with Mr. Rove, whose power in the White House and the Republican Party remains immense, not to mention Mr. Libby, who was Mr. Cheney's alter ego until resigning after his indictment on Friday.There has never been a time when protecting a White House staffer -- like Rove -- took priority over protecting the integrity of the President.
