5 words I never thought I would ever string together in the same sentence: I agree with Robert Gibbs

By now pretty much everyone has heard about how CNN screwed the pooch on their Coast Guard "report" this morning.

CNN is reporting that the Coast Guard has fired on a boat on the Potomac River.

Update at 10:10 a.m. ET: The report of some activity on the river comes only minutes after President Obama concluded 9/11 memorial ceremonies at the Pentagon not far away.

Update at 10:12 a.m. ET: CNN says the Coast Guard fired 10 rounds at the boat.

Update at 10:14 a.m. ET: CNN broadcasts what it says is audio of the Coast Guard apparently speaking to a suspicious boat. The Coast Guard speaker is heard saying; "Slow down or you will be fired on."

Except, CNN was wrong. Very, very wrong. It seems that CNN aired the story based upon overhearing radio traffic from a training exercise and ran it without confirming the story. As the Washington Post explains:

No shots were fired," Currier said. "There was no suspect vessel. There was no criminal activity. This was a pre-planned, normal training exercise."

He said that unspecified "members of the public" had "intercepted" clear-channel, unencrypted Coast Guard radio transmissions regarding the exercise and apparently concluded erroneously that a real interdiction of a suspect vessel was taking place on the Potomac, near Memorial Bridge. Not far from the river, President Obama attended a ceremony Friday morning at the Pentagon to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Currier said that although no shots were fired during the exercise, there was "verbalization of gunfire" in the radio transmissions.

"Somebody said, 'Bang! Bang!' on the radio at an appropriate time in the training exercise when the actual interdiction of the boat would have taken place," he said.

CNN's response was essentially that the White House created a panic by staging this exercise on 9/11 and, by golly, they want answers!!!



The White House response?:

Gibbs said he wouldn’t second-guess Coast Guard leadership for holding a Potomac River exercise on the morning of the 9/11 commemoration. But he took a shot at CNN, which initially didn’t know the maneuvers in the Potomac were an exercise and erroneously reported that gunshots were fired — something the homeland security department said didn’t occur.

“Let’s understand that best I can tell there was reporting based on listening to a police scanner that was not verified, and then it was on television and now we’ve raced back to find out that it’s a training exercise. So I think it appears as if a lot of this might have been avoided,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs told reporters that the Coast Guard was holding a news conference to explain the exercise. "Hopefully CNN will go,” Gibbs quipped. "My only caution would be that before we report things like this, checking would be good."

What kind of crazy, mixed up world is this that finds me on the same side of an issue as Gibbsy??