A sampling:

  • Fleischer fueled the essentially bogus "White House vandalism" story, about the Clinton staff's exodus from the West Wing, by telling reporters, "What we are doing is cataloging that which took place." He did this with a certain flair -- engaging in partisan demagoguery while claiming to be doing the exact opposite. It really was quite magnificent, in its way. "I choose not to describe what acts were done that we found upon arrival, because I think that's part of changing the tone in Washington," Fleischer said. "I think it would be easy for us to reflect and to discuss these things, and to be critical. President Bush chooses to set a different tone." Where was all the damage done? "You know, I really stopped paying attention to all the different places," he said.

  • Nine months later, defending the president's hopscotch across the country in Air Force One on 9/11, Fleischer asserted that the White House was the target of Flight 93, a claim that again proved to be false.

  • Fleischer was actually laughed out of his own briefing room last February when he disputed that the U.S. government -- then fiercely engaged in a campaign to win support for its Iraq resolution in the United Nations -- was doing so. "Think about the implications of what you're saying," Fleischer said incredulously. "You're saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable. And that is not an acceptable proposition." The room erupted in laughter. (Click here, click on "Audio," and fast-forward to 37:07 into the briefing, to hear the peals of delight, followed by Fleischer's hasty "Thank you.")

  • Despite then-candidate Bush's continual refrain on the campaign trail that he loathed the concept of "nation building" -- on Oct. 11, 2000, Bush said, "We're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not" -- Fleischer on Feb. 27, 2003, denied that the president ever voiced such an opinion. "During the campaign, the president did not express, as you put it, disdain for nation building," said Fleischer.

    • It was also, however, frequently clear that Fleischer was hopelessly out of the loop. On March 13, AP reporter Ron Fournier asked Fleischer if the president had plans to leave the United States to meet with U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. "As I told you this morning, there are no plans to travel," Fleischer said. "I asked that question to the chief of staff; he said there are no plans to travel. And so I don't have any information for you beyond that." Fournier asked if there were "tentative plans to visit Tony Blair," to which Fleischer responded that there was "no information about something that there are no plans to do." A day later, Fleischer announced that Bush would summit in the Azores with Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. "I wouldn't have said what I said if I didn't think it was accurate," Fleischer said.

    At the beginning of Bush's term, a White House reporter tells Salon, "when something Ari said didn't check out, you had to ask yourself two questions: Was he being purposely deceitful? Or was he just not in the loop?" After the departure of aide Karen Hughes, the reporter says, "undeniably his access improved, making that calculation a bit easier."

    Information is often kept from spokesmen to keep them from revealing certain information or from encouraging them to lie. Fleischer's steadfastness and brusque manner, however, often made it difficult to determine the motivation for his obfuscations. After the Enron scandal broke on Jan. 16, 2002, reporters asked if the White House was determining whether officials of the administration had received any phone calls from officials at Enron. Fleischer's evasions were remarkable. "On any topic, on anything?" he asked. "The standard the White House has put in place," he said, is to only answer questions about specific calls and not to respond to any "broad, open-ended question." Reporters persisted, asking "whether these calls were made." "'These' calls, meaning which calls?" Fleischer responded. "You said, 'these calls.' Describe the calls."

    On other occasions, Fleischer seemed to have too much access to information. In February 2002, it was clear Fleischer was merely reflecting the view held by his boss when he blamed violence in Israel as the result of President Clinton's failed attempt to bring peace to the region. "In an attempt to shoot the moon and get nothing, more violence resulted," he said. "As the result of an attempt to push the parties beyond where they were willing to go, that led to expectations that were raised to such a high level that it turned into violence."

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