release

Scott McClellan never would have said this:

Senior aides to Mr. Bush scoffed at suggestions that the announcement of the verdict had somehow been orchestrated by the White House.

“Are you smoking rope?” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said Saturday in anticipation of the verdict. “Are you telling me that in Iraq, that they’re sitting around — I’m sorry, that the Iraqi judicial system is coming up with an October surprise?”

Unknown whether the “rope” was a double-entendre referring to the designated execution method, hanging.