"You Know That Comment I Made Eight Years Ago...."

The Washington Post gives an infamous Ari Fleischer comment the benefit of the doubt:

At issue was a line in Milbank's humorous May 12 Washington Sketch column about Rush Limbaugh's towering ego. After quoting White House press secretary Robert Gibbs's disapproval of a joke about Limbaugh and the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, Milbank wrote: "It had an unfortunate echo of Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer's denunciation of comedian Bill Maher after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: Americans need to 'watch what they say.' "

Fleischer quickly e-mailed Milbank: "You're not the first person to write that I said that about Maher - but in fact that's not what I said about him

Fleischer's quick with the email today, and the Post's interpretation of the transcript is quite credible, but I'm left wondering... why wasn't Fleischer quick to defend himself (and remove the negative light the popular interpretation cast on the Bush Administration) eight years ago. It's not as if he would have had difficulty finding a microphone and a room full of reporters who were hanging on his every word. Why wasn't he shouting it from the rooftops the first time somebody "got it wrong", and why weren't his bosses insisting upon it?

He Knows Better, But....

Ari Fleischer whines,

Among the allegations in former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's book is his assertion that the national press corps was "too deferential to the White House" and that the media were "complicit enablers" of President Bush's agenda. The press, he charges, failed to aggressively question the rationale for war. As someone whose duty it was to assume the position of a human piñata every day in the briefing room, I only wish Scott were right.

Fleischer goes on to share many examples of what he contends were tough questions, but fails to share his answers to those questions. As he knows, his answers usually ranged from evasions to outright falsehoods. The criticism is not that no tough questions were never asked - the criticism arises from the complacency of the press in accepting prevarication and deception from the White House and its mouthpieces.