Will the Stonewall Work?

It was, by any measure, an astonishing briefing -- well worth reading or watching in its entirety.

Pummeled by tough questions, McClellan time and again reached for a lifeline. His first, as Milbank writes, was "Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe, who reliably asks about Pakistan -- and did so again. A grateful McClellan offered Goyal an expansive response about how 'free nations are peaceful societies.' "

That gambit had a payoff for McClellan: Once it seemed clear that the mumbling Goyal was just warming up, CNN chose to cut away from its live coverage of the briefing.

As a result, CNN's viewers missed even more pummeling. Reporters came back to the central issue of the day over and over again.

Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist who studies the press corps' interaction with the White House, wrote to me in an e-mail: "Scott was looking for relief. . . . But there was no relief. Reporters are unrelenting when they believe they have been lied to."

Unanswered Questions

Among the questions McClellan did not answer:

· "Does the President stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak of a name of a CIA operative?"

· "[W]hy have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you've suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, 'We're not going to comment on an ongoing investigation'?"

· "Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003 when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliott Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, 'I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this' -- do you stand by that statement?"

· "After the investigation is completed, will you then be consistent with your word and the President's word that anybody who was involved would be let go?"

· "Does the President continue to have confidence in Mr. Rove?"

· "Has there been any change or is there a plan for Mr. Rove's portfolio to be altered in any way?"