Non-Speculative Speculation

I know I've had a lot of Hatch Act stuff lately, but I can't resist posting this exchange between White House spokeswoman Dana Perino and CNN's Ed Henry at a press briefing yesterday:

Q Can I follow up? I just wondered why, then, did, according to apparently six witnesses that have apparently spoken to Congressman Waxman, say that at the end of the one of these briefings the head of the GSA said to, I think it was Scott Jennings, one of Karl Rove's aides: What, then, after getting this briefing can we do to go help Republican candidates? And he said, let's talk off line about that.

MS. PERINO: I never talked to Scott Jennings about that. I think that --

Q Well, why would he suggest that?

MS. PERINO: Well, I'm not going to speculate as to what he would have meant by that or not. I mean, he could have meant that that was an inappropriate comment to make in front of other people and talked about that off line, instead of embarrassing her in front of --

For someone who's "not going to speculate," that's pretty speculative -- and in a way that defends Jennings at GSA chief Lurita Doan's expense.

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