Rumsfeld lies about own WMD statement. Again!

There was some press reaction when a CIA veteran confronted Rummy with his past statements that he knew just where WMDs could be found in Iraq, but for the most part it was just one more example of the administration getting an undeserved pass.

Now, Rumsfeld is rewriting his own statement in a very convenient manner. Appearing last night on Larry King, he said the following:

I said because they’ve just gotten in the southern part of the country and we know, I said something to that effect, that the suspect sites or sites were — meaning suspect sites were up in the area of Baghdad and north. That’s where the intelligence community said them. And we weren’t there yet. We hadn’t covered that piece of real estate.

When originally confronted with his own words, Rumsfeld denied that he had said, uhhh, what he said. But here it is again, from the show This Week:

If you think — let me take that, both pieces — the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Why is it so impossible for members of the press corps to call them on these things? For all the right's talk about the importance of respecting our leaders, or Lieberman's warning that we undermine the president's credibility at our own peril, why should they be allowed to lie to the public about a war, of all things?