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It's usually a bad sign when a criminal defendant has half a dozen defenses against the same charge. You know the drill: I couldn't have been there. I have an alibi. But if I was there I didn't have my glasses. And if I did have my glasses, then I saw someone else do it. And if I did it, well, let me tell you what happened to me when I was three ...

Needless to say, this brings us to Mr. Ari Fleischer.

... Fleischer is lying -- there's no other way to describe it -- about what Wilson's report said to make it seem less significant than it was. (If Fleischer had said Wilson's reasoning was flawed or his investigation incomplete, then you could say he was spinning or distorting. But saying he said something completely different from what he said means he's lying.) He's making it seem less significant than it was to make it appear less culpable that the White House ignored his findings. But the White House's story is that it never heard about his findings. So why the need to discredit his report?

The answer is obvious. They're trying to set up multiple lines of defense.

We didn't hear about it. But if we did hear about it, it didn't amount to much so we ignored it.

Let's have one defense and stick with it, okay?