Dan Bartlett Defends/Kicks White House Correspondents

Paging Bill Moyers!

In an interview with editor Evan Smith in the current Texas Monthly, Dan Bartlett, who until this summer was a top communications adviser to President Bush, takes the slighly unfashionable position that the White House correspondents, in general, did a good job during the run up to the war in Iraq.

In accordance with article 37 of the Geneva Conventions on discussing the White House press corps, Mr. Barlett then took a few jabs at said correspondents.

"The problem is, they're acting now like they have to be five times more critical, and I think they've gone overboard," said Mr. Bartlett.

"This issue of 'Bush lied, people died'? It's been the mantra for the last four years," he added. "There's a difference between lying and being wrong. We were wrong. As were a lot of people and a lot of countries. We were wrong about the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. That's far different from saying that we purposely manipulated or intentionally lied to the American people."