White House Press Briefing Transcript

Whoa.

Q All right, you say you won't discuss it, but the Republican National Committee and others working, obviously, on behalf of the White House, they put out this Wilson-Rove research and talking points, distributed to Republican surrogates, which include things like, Karl Rove discouraged a reporter from writing a false story. And then other Republican surrogates are getting information such as, Cooper -- the Time reporter -- called Rove on the pretense of discussing welfare reform. Bill Kristol on Fox News, a friendly news channel to you, said that the conversation lasted for two minutes and it was just at the end that Rove discussed this. So someone is providing this information. Are you, behind the scenes, directing a response to this story?

MR. McCLELLAN: You can talk to the RNC about what they put out. I'll let them speak to that. What I know is that the President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with that investigation, that means supporting the efforts by the investigators to come to a successful conclusion, and that means not commenting on it from this podium.

Q Well, if --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I understand your question.

Q Well, Fox News and other Republican surrogates are essentially saying that the conversation lasted for two minutes and that the subject was ostensibly welfare reform. They're getting that information from here, from Karl Rove.

MR. McCLELLAN: And again, you're asking questions that are related to news reports about an ongoing, continuing investigation. And you've had my response on that.

Q At the very least, though, Scott, could you say whether or not you stand by your statement --

MR. McCLELLAN: John, I'll come back to you if I can.

And it gets hotter.

UPDATE: I understand that cspan.org has the whole thing, but six minutes of highlights are here.

Dixie Christ: Resurrecting the Confederacy.

2005: thousands of radical Islamists slip into Iraq, hoping to destabilize the emerging democracy and establish fundamentalist rule. Meanwhile, thousands of radical Christians slip into South Carolina, hoping to destabilize its tenuous pluralistic democracy, cecede from the United States, and establish fundamentalist rule. In spite of the obvious exact similarities, one should not jump to conclude that there are similarities. If you do, the Jesus freaks might come after you.

South Carolina may not be flowing with milk and honey, but it looks like the promised land to the leaders of this group, which hopes to relocate thousands of conservative Christian families like the Janoskis from across America to the Palmetto State.

Their aim: to tip the political scales, which they see as already weighted heavily to the right, further in that direction.

Secession "is a valid option," said Janoski, a "state coordinator" for the organization -- but he hopes it doesn't come to that.

"If it's going to be ugly and bloody, nobody wants that," he said.