Conflicting Stories

McClellan: "Go ahead, David."

Gregory: "And they most certainly haven't. I think Helen is right, and the people watching us know that. And related to that, there are now --"

McClellan: "Let me correct the record. We've said for quite some time that this was an ongoing investigation, and that we weren't going to comment on it, so let me just correct the record."

Gregory: "If you want to make the record clear, then you also did make comments when a criminal investigation was underway, you saw fit to provide Karl Rove with a blanket statement of absolution. And that turned out to be no longer accurate --."

After a while, McClellan had this to say about the whole line of questioning: "I thank you for wanting to proceed ahead with the investigation from this room, but I think that the appropriate place for that to happen is through those who are overseeing the investigation. The President directed us to cooperate fully, and that's exactly what we have been doing and continue to do."

The Roberts Nomination

David D. Kirkpatrick writes in the New York Times: "For at least a year before the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court, the White House was working behind the scenes to shore up support for him among its social conservative allies, quietly reassuring them that he was a good bet for their side in cases about abortion, same-sex marriage and public support for religion.

"When the White House began testing the name of Judge Roberts on a short list of potential nominees, many social conservatives were skeptical. . . .

"But with a series of personal testimonials about Judge Roberts, his legal work, his Roman Catholic faith, and his wife's public opposition to abortion, two well-connected Christian conservative lawyers -- Leonard Leo, chairman of Catholic outreach for the Republican Party, and Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of an evangelical Protestant legal center founded by Pat Robertson -- gradually won over most social conservatives to nearly unanimous support, even convincing them that the lack of a paper trail was an asset that made Judge Roberts harder to attack.

"Both had been tapped by the White House to build the coalition for judicial confirmation battles."

Gary Fineout and Marc Caputo write in the Miami Herald: "As U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is scrutinized for everything from his judicial rulings to his abortion views, his role during one of the most memorable times in modern political history remains obscured by imperfect memories and White House-imposed secrecy.

"Roberts was called to the state capital by Gov. Jeb Bush's office during the 2000 presidential election to advise the governor on his role in certifying the disputed results, which ultimately put Bush's brother in the White House."

Veto Threat

Vicki Allen writes for Reuters: "The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere. . . .

"Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney that he still intended to offer amendments next week 'on the standard of treatment of prisoners.' "

McCain is among at least three Republicans working on amendments "intended to prevent further abuses in the wake of the scandal over sexual abuse and mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and harsh, degrading interrogations at Guantanamo," Allen writes.

Anybody Listening?

Bush gave a speech at the Organization of American States yesterday. Here's the text . It was mostly about CAFTA.

But the wire services barely covered it. CNN cut away from their London reporting when Bush started speaking, but after hearing Bush say "There's nothing more beautiful than freedom," cut right back to the news.

And unless I missed it, there was not one word about his speech in this morning's Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times or Wall Street Journal.

Today's Calendar

Bush is off to Atlanta today. He is chatting about Medicare at a senior center and then participating "in a conversation on Senior Security," at the Atlanta Civic Center.

The Associated Press notes that tickets to the civic center event were given out by Georgia congressmen and a few chambers of commerce.

Bush is off to Camp David later tonight, and has a light to nonexistent public schedule for next week.

Fund-Raising Watch

Peter Whoriskey and John Wagner write in The Washington Post: "The first couple stepped out separately yesterday evening for destinations in the Washington suburbs: President Bush set off for a 'very intimate dinner' at a McLean estate overlooking the Potomac River; first lady Laura Bush headed for a North Bethesda hotel. . . .

"Their appearances, essentially an hour or so of face time, raised roughly $2.3 million for Republican leaders in Maryland and Virginia. . . .

"The invitation to Dwight and Martha Schar's luxurious home by the Potomac River in McLean beckoned with the promise of proximity to power: a 'very intimate dinner,' it proposed, with 'our very special guest President George W. Bush.' "

Tableau Watch

Fashion writer Robin Givhan writes in The Washington Post: "It has been a long time since so much syrupy nostalgia has been in evidence at the White House. But Tuesday night, when President Bush announced his choice for the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, it was hard not to marvel at the 1950s-style tableau vivant that was John Roberts and his family."

Exercise Watch

As I noted yesterday, Elisabeth Bumiller had a story in the New York Times in which she wrote: "When President Bush sat down in the White House residence last Thursday to interview a potential Supreme Court nominee, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, he asked him about the hardest decision he had ever made -- and also how much he exercised.

" 'Well, I told him I ran three and a half miles a day,' Judge Wilkinson recalled in a telephone interview on Wednesday. 'And I said my doctor recommends a lot of cross-training, but I said I didn't want to do the elliptical and the bike and the treadmill.' The president, Judge Wilkinson said, 'took umbrage at that,' and told his potential nominee that he should do the cross-training his doctor suggested."

Blogger Brendan Nyhan yesterday mocked what he calls "affirmative action for the fit" in the Bush White House.

And Jonathan Chait writes in a Los Angeles Times opinion column this morning: "Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy. . . .

"Bush's insistence that the entire populace follow his example, and that his staff join him on a Long March -- er, Long Run -- carries about it the faint whiff of a cult of personality. It also shows how out of touch he is. It's nice for Bush that he can take an hour or two out of every day to run, bike or pump iron. Unfortunately, most of us have more demanding jobs than he does."

Late Night Humor

Paul Brownfield writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Two seemingly unrelated things have happened lately on 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart': There's a new set, and the show has gotten great play out of the Karl Rove CIA leak scandal/not a scandal. . . .

" 'The Daily Show,' which one night called the story 'Rove Actually,' " is "feasting off of it, mixing the story's convoluted and coded elements with easy pop culture references."

Brownfield calls special attention to this already legendary segment from last week, in which Stewart showed one of McClellan's recent grillings, and announced, sotto voce: "We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters."