Caught on Tape

"As the White House tries to prop up support for an increasingly unpopular war, today -- to hear it from military brass -- it used soldiers as props on stage.

"One commander tells Fox it was scripted and rehearsed -- the troops were told what to say to the president and how to say it. And that, says another senior officer today, is outrageous.

"It's certainly not the first time a photo op has been staged for the president -- far from it -- but it's the first time we know of that such a staging has touched off such anger."

On comes Carl Cameron: "First, the White House and the Pentagon claimed it was not rehearsed. But for 45 minutes before the event, the hand-picked soldiers practiced their answers with the Pentagon official from D.C. who, in her own words, drilled them on the president's likely questions and their, quote, scripted responses.

"There are folks here at the White House now walking around shaking their heads about how badly it appears to have gone."

On CNN this morning, Miles O'Brien amused himself by apparently reading from a transcript of what Barber said during the rehearsal.

"Here's the part I like," he said. " 'OK, so let's work on that answer a little bit, Captain Kennedy. Why don't you work on -- "We're working with the Iraqi soldiers and to my right is Master Sergeant." ' And then a little later, she says, 'You know, a few smiles wouldn't hurt back here on the TV.' A few smiles."

But it's doubtful that anyone has had as much fun with this story as MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who under the rubric "White House follies" last night paired what he called "the president's choreographed satellite back-slapping session with the troops" with "the press secretary's knee-capping session with the White House press corps."

"It's like watching the Jesse Ventura show," he said after showing extensive clips of the troop rehearsal, and the ensuing event.

Olbermann asked Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank to explain what happened.

"It really is inexplicable," Milbank said. "This was a White House that did everything right, in terms of imagery, and now they just seem to have completely lost their mojo on fairly simple things. . . .

"It is tempting to say that none of this would have happened if Karl Rove were still alive, but that is oversimplifying. . . .