Editor's note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions almost no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you'd like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily's exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT!
At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Scott McClellan about the president's position on the Boy Scouts of America in light of a recent settlement with the ACLU agreed to by his Defense Department.
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WND: Scott, a two-part. When Governor Bush was running against Vice President Gore, both The Washington Times and WorldNetDaily –
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McCLELLAN: Can we make this one-part, because there are a lot of hands up there in back, and I'm trying to keep this moving.
WND: (Motioning to front rows of briefing room) But they had six parts. And just – two questions, two quick ones.
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McCLELLAN: Well, let's go to the questions, and not the statements.
WND: They quoted Mr. Bush as saying, "For many years the Boy Scouts have conducted jamborees and other events on public lands and provided thousands of volunteer hours to help maintain our national parks. I hope that President Clinton and Vice President Gore respect the role the Boy Scouts play in our society; I will not allow them to be shut out of federal lands." And my question, has the president, in any degree, changed his mind on this issue, to the point that as commander in chief he will not resist the ACLU, which wants the Boy Scouts banned because they believe in God?
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McCLELLAN: The president's views are pretty clear on this issue, and his view that the Boy Scouts are a private organization. I think the president has spoken to this issue previously. I don't have anything else to add to that at this point.
WND: Since the new head of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, is not only a denier of the Holocaust, but an advocate of the alleged "right of return" of all Arabs who left Israel in 1948, and he's met with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and they are both on our country's list of terrorists – and my question, doesn't the president oppose all of these Abbas positions, and wish that still-Secretary Powell had, as well, in his Jericho press conference on November the –
McCLELLAN: The president thinks it's important to end terrorism in the region. I think he's spoken very clearly about that. He also believes it's important to help the Palestinian people move forward and put the institutions into place that are necessary for a viable, democratic state to emerge, because if you have those institutions in place, the leaders will emerge to fill those positions.
WND: When have the leaders ever done anything from the PA? When have they ever done anything?
McCLELLAN: If you're going to make comments, that's fine – you've heard the president's views on this, Les. We can sit here and shout over each other, or you can ask the questions, and I can give you our response. I'm going to keep moving for now.
