Apparently the new White House strategy is when someone says something embarassing, simply deny that it was ever said regardless of the evidence.
Now to verify what was actually said, here's the video of the press conference from the White House itself, the exchange starts at about 5:30 in.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/print/20051031-3.html
(McClellan clearly says that's accurate.)
If McClellan mispoke in the first place, he could certainly start his press conference by explaining how he mispoke in the previous press conference and what he meant to say. However, altering the actual transcript and trying to get the press in general to also do so is completely unacceptable. Its one short step from that to just periodically editing out of transcripts things that representives of the White House have said that could get back to haunt them.
I find it increadibly disturbing that with White House officials having easy access to the video in question to check, one day after this contraversy started the White House is still maintaining their version of the transcript is the accurate one.
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/art..._display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001477236NEW YORK Presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan's short answer to a question at his daily press briefing last week has prompted a dispute between the White House press office and two news organizations that offer transcripts of the events.
A spokeswoman for McClellan's office told E&P today that the White House is standing by its version of what he said.
At the Oct. 31 briefing, David Gregory of NBC News stated the following question to McClellan about White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby: "Whether there's a question of legality, we know for a fact that there was involvement. We know that Karl Rove, based on what he and his lawyer have said, did have a conversation about somebody who Patrick Fitzgerald said was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. We know that Scooter Libby also had conversations."
The official White House transcript states that McClellan's response was "I don?t think that's accurate."
But two outside news agencies, Congressional Quarterly and Federal News Service - which provide transcripts for a fee -both reported the response as "that's accurate."...
White House officials contacted the news outlets and ask for a change to their versions of the transcript.
"They asked me to take a look at it about a week ago," said Kirk Hanneman, news director of Federal News Service, which provides transcripts of different government events. "We took a look at it because they did have a problem with it and in the end, we had what we originally had and we are sticking by that because we believe it is correct."
Now to verify what was actually said, here's the video of the press conference from the White House itself, the exchange starts at about 5:30 in.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/print/20051031-3.html
(McClellan clearly says that's accurate.)
If McClellan mispoke in the first place, he could certainly start his press conference by explaining how he mispoke in the previous press conference and what he meant to say. However, altering the actual transcript and trying to get the press in general to also do so is completely unacceptable. Its one short step from that to just periodically editing out of transcripts things that representives of the White House have said that could get back to haunt them.
I find it increadibly disturbing that with White House officials having easy access to the video in question to check, one day after this contraversy started the White House is still maintaining their version of the transcript is the accurate one.