Parsing McClellan and Perino [View All]

He said:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."
- Scott McClellan

She said:
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt. “The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information,” she said.

In spite of McClellan's present backpedaling, his statement seems quite clear to me.
1. He didn't know he was putting out false info.
2. The false info was given to him by Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, et al.

Perino carefully waltzes around a flat denial that all the president's men lied to McClellan.
“The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information.”
No he didn't say "Scotty, I want you to go out there and tell this lie."
In effect be said "Here's the straight poop, Scotty. No go out there and them."
He didn't tell McClellan to lie.
He just lied to McClellan.
And ultimately to the citizens of our nation.
And he lied about a criminal act.
That sounds like conspiracy to me.
And it sounds like a 'high crime'.

If that's not solid grounds for impeachment I don't know what is.
Happy Thanksgiving.