Changing a Story on the Fly By Ken Fireman WASHINGTON BUREAU December 3, 2003 Washington - The White House has changed one aspect of its account of President George W. Bush's surprise Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad: the spotting of Air Force One by a British Airways pilot. Initially, according to accounts by journalists on the trip, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the British pilot had radioed, "'Did I just see Air Force One?'" and that the pilot of Air Force One had replied, "'Gulfstream Five,'" a much smaller aircraft. Yesterday, after British Airways had denied that account, the White House said the radio conversation actually took place between the British pilot and the control tower in London. The tower's response was apparently based on false flight plan information given to protect the secrecy of the trip. The sighting of the presidential aircraft occurred just after daybreak Thursday off the western coast of England, the White House said. Bush has said he was prepared to scrub the trip if news of the journey had leaked. A British Airways spokesman told The Associated Press that none of its pilots has come forward to acknowledge either making or overhearing the purported conversation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not really that big a deal, just interesting that these lies come so easily and so often from this admin.
you're kind of reaching here, don't you think? is this so really significant that it needs its own thread? These kind of threads merely serve to delegitimize any substantive critisism of the administration.
Agreed it can be argued that this can be attributed to avoiding a potential threat. If you really wanna see reaching, re-read your signature.
Look basso, I'm not one of you guys who spend time in here nit-picking each other to death. I stated in my post that this, by itself, isn't really a big deal. I stick by my observation that the this adminisration is lying a lot, whether it be about something as minute as an airborn conversation that occurred or about something as important as WMD's. By the way, point me to the thread discussing this story and I'll be glad to post this there.
Of course, you're making an assumption that it's a lie. AF1 pilot tells someone the story about overhearing the transmission from a BA pilot and the London tower (not the Tower of London, of course), that person tells Communications Director, but between the two tellings and all the other things the Communications Director has to keep up with on a trip such as this one, the whos of the story got confused and Communications Director walks away thinking it was AF1 pilot who responded rather than London tower. Communications Director tells press story with misunderstood detail which is later corrected. Maybe a lie, maybe not. Sometimes details get messed up in the retelling of stories.
check out rimrocker's post: http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&postid=1144015#post1144015
