CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to McClellan: Is President Bush ‘A Serial Liar?’

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer made little effort to hide his liberal viewpoint during an interview of Scott McClellan on Friday’s "The Situation Room." After asking the former White House Press Secretary about his "revival" of the question of whether President Bush used cocaine as a young man, the CNN host followed-up by asking, "I guess the question is, is the President -- this is a blunt question -- in your opinion, a serial liar?"

Earlier in the interview, which began 12 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program, Blitzer addressed the issue of supposed "war crimes" related to the Iraq war. First, Blitzer played a video question from a viewer who asked McClellan, "Would you now consider testifying about your colleagues at a war crimes trial?" After listening to McClellan’s answer, Blitzer replied, "Knowing what you know now, do you believe war crimes, as this I-reporter suggests, were in fact committed?"

Prior to the airing of the video question, the on-screen graphic hinted at what was going to be asked: "‘Propaganda’ on Iraq: Were Crimes Committed?"

Beside the issue of whether President Bush is a "serial liar," Blitzer, in his first question to the former Press Secretary-turned author, asked whether he had lied during his time in the White House:

WOLF BLITZER: You've caused a lot of commotion by suggesting that is was 'propaganda' that was used to justify the war in Iraq. But you were part of that. Listen to what you yourself in July 2003.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN: The President has been very straight-forward about this from the beginning. He laid out a very compelling case -- a very clear case. It was based on solid evidence.

BLITZER: All right. You don't believe that now, so were you lying then?

Towards the end of the interview, Blitzer brought up how McClellan had apologized to former counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke for reading "talking points" against Clarke’s book when it was released in 2004. The CNN host then asked, "Do you owe the American people an apology... [f]or the years that you served in the White House, and you said what you said, and now, you said a lot of that stuff was simply wrong?" Blitzer, apparently not satisfied with McClellan’s answer, asked again: "Are you sorry? Do you want to say you're sorry to the American people? Do you want to apologize?"