Ari Ari Oxen Free

[khaosworks]

Mr Fleischer has given his 300th and last press conference, whereupon he was presented with a chocolate cake by the correspondent from Fox News, who jokingly assured - in the best of taste that Fox is known for - that it was not "yellow cake", but noted that doesn't prove it wasn't yellow cake.

But don't be sad - Ari isn't leaving us, not really. The New York Times says he's going to sign up with the Washington Speaker's Bureau first of all, to start going on the lecture circuit where he'll of course make mucho dinero. Next, he's going to set up Ari Fleischer Communications, who will provide consulting services to corporations on how to deal with the media (so brace yourselves for more convoluted and bald-faced corporate lies). He's also not abandoning the shrub, since he'll also be, as long announced, working with fundraising for Bush's 2004 campaign. And of course, there's the inevitable insider book.

And what of Scott McClellan? He gave his first press conference two days ago, and every indication shows that he's going to be a worthy successor to Ari in terms of avoiding questions, although he needs to hone his obfuscation skills:

Q Scott, on this Iraq-Niger situation , why is it that the President made the comment yesterday that doubts were only raised about the underlying intelligence behind that statement after the State of the Union address, when other administration officials and other evidence suggests that's not true?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, when it came to our attention, when it came to the President's attention was when the IAEA came out in March with the report showing that those documents relating to Niger were forged. And that was only one part of the overall piece of information that was cited.

Q But doubts were raised clear back to the previous --

MR. McCLELLAN: But go back to the NIE, and in the NIE it stated that Iraq was trying to seek uranium from Africa. And I think that we have addressed this issue. We have made it clear that that statement should not have been in the speech, and if the CIA had said, take it out, we would have taken it out.

But let's put this in perspective. This issue here relates to the threat that Saddam Hussein and his regime posed to the region, to his people and to the world. And the statement in the State of the Union was one piece of one part of a much larger body of evidence that --

Q Right, but that's not -- the question I'm dealing with has to do with --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- related to the regime's weapons of mass destruction and the threat that the regime posed; not only that it had weapons, but it has past history.

Q I'll ask a question about that in just a second. The point is, the President said doubts were only raised after the State of the Union address -- and that's not accurate. Why did he say that?

MR. McCLELLAN: And it was laid out previously. I think we've addressed this. We've addressed this over the last couple of days, about the timing of when we found out that those -- that the documents were forged.

Q But learning about the forgeries was one piece of this. But doubts about the intelligence were raised last year.

MR. McCLELLAN: The bottom line is that we should not have put that line in the speech, and we've made that clear.

Let's look at our new buddy Scott a little closer - according to Democracy Now! who ran a great piece on Ari Fleischer's Greatest Hits, "McClellan comes from a political family in Texas with long ties to the Bush clan. His mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, is the comptroller of Texas. His brother, Mark McClellan, is commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration," so he has the pedigree for this. As pointed out in his first press conference, he's also run four successful political campaigns.

Yesterday's press conference showcased his ability for out and out lying: scroll down a bit for the juicy bits about Iraq and how McClellan out and out lies that "there was never any discussion about whether or not Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or weapons of mass destruction program until recently. That's only recently come into play."

It also exhibited his ability for fobbing Helen Thomas aside, being in complete denial about the White House credibility problem, and again not answering questions. Sniffle. Ari would be so proud.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. But he can only succeed you, Ari. Never replace you.

Comments

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Where is Ron Ziegler when we need him?

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Even with Ari gone, there will still be the Borowitz Report, which reported an interesting new job for Ari and which will similarly spoof Scott McClellan.