And I must say, Scott McClelland was a step down from Ari Fleischer, but Tony Snow is a precipitous fall from Scott.

Bush's Lie
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, June 1, 2006; 1:18 PM

It's not necessarily a huge deal in itself, but with credibility a paramount issue for the White House these days, it's worth noting that when asked about Treasury Secretary John Snow's future last week, President Bush could easily have ducked the question, or told the truth -- but instead, he chose to lie about it.

Lying is probably the one word mainstream journalists are the most averse to using when recounting what the president said -- even when they know he's not telling the truth. The act of lying requires not just the presentation of false information, but an intention to deceive. Reporters -- and, particularly editors -- are notoriously resistant to ascribe such volition without ironclad evidence.

But there's really no other way to describe what Bush said Thursday. Press secretary Tony Snow's widely-quoted explanation that Bush's statement was in some way "artfully worded" is just plain wrong.

It may not have been an important lie. And there are some mitigating factors: It was, after all, a personnel matter and there was some possibly legitimate concern about the financial markets. But it couldn't be more clear that Bush was being intentionally deceptive.