WH Puts WP Against NYT
Earlier this week, Hotline pointed out that the WH press office has become a rapid response machine; they don't issue press releases, they issue rebuttals. This, plus the desperate mean-spiritedness of their attacks on war critics -- yesterday, Scott McClellan put 37-year Marine vet John Murtha in the "Michael Moore wing" of the Democratic party -- prompted a story in today's Washington Post cataloguing some the Bushie's more venal accusations. Especially eye-catching was a quote from a lengthy White House press release castigating The New York Times; the administration apologized for going on so with what might be called the "nanny-nanny boo-boo" defense: "as parents of young children and dog owners know, it takes longer to clean up a mess than to make one."
Talk about playing dirty!
Less colorful but perhaps more vicious was this slap, characterizing the editorial as being from "the newspaper that gave us Jayson Blair. 'Decoding Mr. Bush's Denial' is so replete with half-truths, misstatements, and false statements that it boggles the mind, until one recalls whence it came." Snap! Though, uhm: "whence"? Since when did the White House start using the word "whence" -- except to describe what the Democrats do when you pretend you're going to hit them?
Even more suspicious is that this spicy quotage appears nowhere else (not even on the White House website) but in the Post, which, you may have noticed, is having its own credibility problems lately. We don't doubt that the White House is at the level of poopy talk and Jayson Blair-baiting; perhaps they're also trying to distract us with a little intra-MSM war. Hell, it's easier than invading Syria.