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You might have seen or heard about President Bush’s teleconference with 10 U.S. troops and an Iraqi soldier that aired this morning. What you probably do not know is that it was completely scripted.

Why is that surprising? Because afterwards they said it wasn’t scripted.

See, lying doesn’t work very well when there’s a camera filming the truth. Here is CNN’s video coverage of the event (thanks to ThinkProgress):

Allison Barber Training Troops

Afterwards, Allison Barber, the troops’ trainer, insisted that the questions were not rehearsed. With Rove under the magnifying glass, it is like they are not even trying anymore.

Let’s say the resulting press conference did not go well for Scott. Not only did he get grilled for this lie, he tried to connect Iraq to 9/11. When Helen Thomas called him out on that zinger, he attacked Helen. The other reporters were none to fond of that. C&L has the edited video. You can see the full press conference at C-Span.

Update (10-14-2005 12:52am): OneGoodMove is hosting MSNBC’s take of today’s debacle. They did a good job of showing the teleconference, its rehearsal, and the press gaggle aftwerards.