Media Bullshit on Scott McClellan Falls Apart

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White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said last night that the president ``has not and would not ask anyone to pass on false information.'' She directed reporters to call McClellan, saying he believes the excerpts were taken ``out of context.''

McClellan didn't return a phone call and an e-mail requesting comment.

McClellan doesn't suggest that Bush deliberately lied to him about Libby's and Rove's involvement in the leak, said Peter Osnos, founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan's memoir next year.

``He told him something that wasn't true, but the president didn't know it wasn't true,'' Osnos said in a telephone interview. ``The president told him what he thought to be the case.''

In an interview with CNN in March, McClellan said he had said what he ``believed to be true at the time'' and ``it was also what the president believed to be true at the time, based on assurances that we were both given.''