Losing Their Touch

So the White House press corps is all up in arms because the Bush White House lied to them about Clement.

I wrote the other day that I couldn’t think of one good reason why they would have done it. Many people wrote in to tell me that it was because they wanted to float a woman or distract from Rove or any number of other reasons. I agree that they could have done it for these reasons, but I didn’t think those were good reasons, mostly because there was something strange and clumsy about it. But there is one reason that I hadn’t considered: it was done for no other reason than to mislead the press just for the day, for purely theatrical reasons.

I read over on bartcop yesterday that Bush was reportedly “furious” that Roberts’ name had been leaked before he could announce it in his bizarre, unprecedented, prime-time, no-questions-allowed little pageant. If that’s true, then it’s likely that they leaked Clement not to assuage people’s fears that he hadn’t considered a woman and not to put the liberal interest groups off base, and not to float her to get reaction from the Christianists — but purely to misdirect the press so Junior could unveil a big surprise on National Teevee. Kind of like pulling a rabbit out of the hat, only with the Supreme Court.

That was not the brightest public relations decision they’ve ever made under the circumstances. So, I stand by my belief that it was a mistake. And it’s looking like it was a bigger mistake than I realized at the time.

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