When I was a kid things were clear-cut -- lies were lies and truth was the truth. Funny thing is, as I've gotten older I'm finding that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Here's a great example of what I mean. Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan is writing a book about his years with the administration, titled "What Happened." His publisher today released this short excerpt, intended to spark interest in the book: 

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff, and the president himself."

Wow, sounds like pretty damning evidence of conspiracy to violate the law. Or does it? Here are two scenarios, read each one then go ahead and re-read the excerpt above.

1. Bush, Rove, et al. decided to leak Valerie Plame's name to the media, and ordered McClellan to lie about it.
2. McClellan to brief the press as he always does, after his typical consultations with Bush, Rove, et al., and it turns out that what he said wasn't true.

Scenario #1 is a Democrat's wet dream. Scenario #2 could be the fault of any one person, perhaps not even one of the five mentioned.  Either way, McClellan's statement is totally correct.

Funny how truth works, isn't it?