The McClellan CD Needs Cleaning

Benjamin provided the link--Froomkin reports on Eric Brewer, the second blogger to get White House credentials (BTC News). Brewer's version is here, by the way.

The question he asked was a good one, on a topic that's probably of great interest to an awful lot of people.

It's also precisely the kind of question your typical full-time White House correspondent doesn't ask anymore -- because there's simply no point. You're not going to get an answer.

Here's the question Brewer asked, by his own account in a shaky voice:

"Back to the report on the botched WMD intelligence, have the massive intelligence failures documented in the report caused the President to rethink his policy of preventive war?"

It's a good question because the doctrine of preemption is one of the most defining and precedent-shattering elements of the Bush canon. The apparently sorry state of the U.S. intelligence apparatus makes it entirely unclear whether the doctrine is still in effect -- and under what circumstances it could again be called into service...

But the response, such as it was, was classic McClellan. In fact, it could literally have been stitched together from previous McClellan responses to similar questions.

Here's what McClellan said...

"You know, September 11th taught us a very important lesson, and that lesson was that we must confront threats before it is too late. If we had known of those attacks ahead of time, we would have moved heaven and earth to prevent them from happening. This President will not hesitate when it comes to protecting the American people. And in the post-September 11th world that we live in, the consequences of underestimating the threat we face is too high. It's tens of -- possibly tens of thousands of lives.

Brewer followed up: "What about the cost of overestimating?"

McClellan: "Are you talking about the Iraq situation?"

Brewer: "Going into Iraq, yes, with bad intelligence."

McClellan: I think we've talked about this before.The world is safer with Saddam Hussein's regime removed from power. The Iraqi people are serving as an example to the rest of the Middle East through their courage and determination to build a free future."

And at this point, Hearst columnist Helen Thomas piped in:

"The ones that are alive, you mean?"

If you go back to Froomkin's piece, you'll note hyperlinks to every sentence McClellan uttered--it's as if he doesn't actually have a brain (perhaps explaining his empathy with Terry Schiavo); instead an unseen hand pulls a string following each question (you'll also note from the links that Froomkin is a Firefox user).

The idea, of course, is to stay "on message," and it's as "Clintonesque" as you can get, to be honest. But it's high time SOMEONE confronted these clowns in such a way that their inner greasepaint becomes apparent. Over and over the mantras of 9/11 and Saddam is bad have emanated from the White House walls. Someone needs to ask why it was necessary to invade BEFORE soldiers and Humvees were armored (thus increasing the casualty count dramatically).

That'd be the equivalent of giving the CD player a good whack. And I'll bet the McClellan CD is so full of dirt that even a good cleaning wouldn't help. Maybe it'd be best to toss it and buy another one...