Q: Scott, is Tony Blair right when he says the U.S. has to get on board with the agenda of countries who see climate control as a major priority?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I’m not sure that that’s an accurate way to describe what he’s saying.

Let’s go to the transcript…

TONY BLAIR: If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda too… What would be the subject matter of a common agenda?… Fourth and fifth are the two issues we have set aside for our Presidency of the G8: climate change and Africa. [Special address at World Economic Forum, 1/27/05]

The Bush administration is getting increasingly worried about the fallout from paying off conservative journalists to pump its policies. How do I know? At first, the White House wasn’t willing to pin blame on the Department of Education for the Armstrong Williams flap. On 1/10/04, this is the strongest thing White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was willing to say:

“[Q]uestions have been raised about that arrangement. It ought to be looked into…”

But at the press conference yesterday, President Bush threw the Department of Education under the bus:

Q: Mr. Williams made a mistake. Did the Department of Education make a mistake?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. They did.

For good measure, a not so thinly veiled shot at his good friend Rod Paige:

Q: What will happen to the people that made this decision?

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve got new leadership going to the Department of Education.

More on Ambassador John Negroponte’s shifty explanation of Iraqi security forces that Jon Baskin touched on earlier:

On Jan. 12, the State Department released its Weekly Iraq Status Update, which states on page 5 that Iraq’s army consists of precisely 4,159 individuals. That was the report referenced by Sen. Joseph Biden during his questioning of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. You might think the U.S. ambassador to Iraq would be familiar with the report’s contents before appearing on national television, particularly considering the report is easily accessible online. Of course, you’d be wrong:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Joe Biden, Delaware Democrat, said this week in Washington that there are only 4,000 fully trained and capable Iraqi soldiers in the Iraqi armed forces. Is that accurate?

AMB. NEGROPONTE: Well, I think that really understates the accomplishments of the Iraqi army and police forces. They’ve had a number of successes in the past several months in Najaf, in Samarra, in eastern Baghdad. There are some 75 or 80 Iraqi battalions that are currently trained and operating, so I think that that 4,000 figure understates the progress that has been made by Iraq’s armed forces in the past six months.

Negroponte manages to dodge Russert’s simple question — “Is that accurate?” — in four different ways.

First, Negroponte mentions “Iraqi army and police forces.” Iraqi police currently number more than 50,000; Russert asked only about the soldiers in the Iraqi armed forces (i.e., the army). Negroponte then plays up the recent “accomplishments” and “successes” of the Iraqi forces, implying Russert had questioned the soldiers’ competence; he actually asked about the pace at which the U.S. is training new forces. Next Negroponte mentions Iraqi successes in places like Najaf and Samarra, actually referring to the Iraqi National Guard (not the army or the police), which was used heavily in those operations. Finally, Negroponte claims the number used by Russert — which is, to repeat, released by the State Department and updated weekly — “understates the progress that has been made by Iraq’s armed forces in the past six months.”

John Negroponte: wildly ignorant, or a shameless spinmeister?