DeFrank of the Daily News once more:

Bush spokesman Scott ["Sucker MC"] McClellan used carefully parsed language to hint that Karl Rove and Lewis (Scooter) Libby could have misled him when they said they were not involved in outing CIA spy Valerie Plame.

Asked specifically whether Rove and Libby left him "hung out to dry" when he vouched for them, McClellan said, "There are facts the President doesn't know. There are facts I don't know."

He was later queried again on the topic and told reporters, "You pointed back to some past comments that I gave, and I've talked to you about the assurances that I've received on that."

But McClellan didn't mince words in defending Vice President Cheney, who reportedly told his chief of staff Libby about Plame well before she was outed - contradicting Libby's claim that reporters gave him her name. He described Cheney as someone who tells the truth, "a straightforward, plain-spoken person."

[Rimshot. Laughter.]

So there's still hope....