WTF Is It Now?!?

White House tries damage-control
"Bush's attempt to blame Tenet for the whole fiasco is like the drunkard blaming his wife for his drinking because she hasn't the fortitude to take away his bottle." - - Marshall Helmberger.

The White House has teamed with other members of the Party of Personal Responsibility GOP congressional leaders in an aggressive damage-control campaign to counter embarrassing questions about prewar intelligence and lapses by liar/bungler Smirky McOilfield and his national security team.

But the effort is being hampered by an ever-changing White House story - from first blaming the CIA and then the British to new revelations by Stephen Hadley that contradict earlier statements by his boss, Condoleezza "oil me!" Rice.

Meanwhile, the straight-shootin' pReznit Privilege has dodged questions over whether he takes personal responsibility for those words.

The AWOL Wonderchimp got a temporary respite from the criticism with the killing of Saddam's sons, enabling him to give an upbeat progress report on Iraq to reporters in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, but the controversy over his Iraq-Africa comments are lingering.

No matter how you slice it, Bush knowingly made a reckless allegation, and the credibility of his administration, the presidency, and this nation, has suffered as a result. If Bush were a bigger man, rather than someone who's used his name and connections to evade responsibility all his life, he'd stand up and accept the blame here. That's what a real leader does when his or her team screws up. They don't hide behind underlings.

"The buck does not stop with the CIA director, George Tenet, and it does not stop with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. The buck stops with the president," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

While the White House says one thing, "We're getting totally different messages from the CIA," said Sen. Carl Levin, senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.