As Twitchy reported on Friday, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer’s post about the Winston Churchill bust was highly misleading.
Now even Andy Rosenthal, editorial page editor of the New York Times, is calling out Pfeiffer:
Yesterday, I wrote about The Great Churchill Bust Incident of 2009, which some critics of President Obama characterized as a major upset in The Special Relationship between Washington and London.
I got some facts wrong, because I made the mistake of relying on a White House blog post by the communications director Dan Pfeiffer, which included what looked like photographic proof that the bust never left the White House. Except Mr. Pfeiffer didn’t tell the whole truth and nothing but…
After the columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote a column reviving the Churchill affair, Mr. Pfeiffer wrote his post saying the whole thing was a lie and the loaned bust never left the White House. To prove his point, he posted a photograph of Mr. Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron gawking at the bust–except it seems they were gawking at the original bust, not the one on loan (the one in question).
The British Embassy denied Mr. Pfeiffer’s account, and Mr. Pfeiffer posted a weaselly follow-up comment that I would summarize for you, but it makes no sense. Mostly, it fails to acknowledge that his post the previous day was false.
On Friday, Krauthammer requested a retraction and apology:
@pfeiffer44 I await Pfeiffer's retraction and apology http://t.co/eKkyEyFg
— Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) In Memoriam (@krauthammer) July 28, 2012
He is still waiting.