This is how it's done

Attention, media whores: please check out White House correspondent Helen Thomas and ABC News reporter Terry Moran standing up to Lyin' Scott McClellan (transcript, video) and not being struck by lightning, falling into an abyss, or being torn to shreds by a mob of angry patriots. Evan Derkacz has the short version:

"What does the President mean by 'total victory' -- that we will never leave Iraq until we have 'total victory'? What does that mean?"

And just as Scott McClellan had pressed play on his response reel, Thomas interrupted the geyser of platitudes to ask about the will of the Iraqis. McClellan then took himself off of pause and redirected the conversation back to Iraq... war on terror... you're getting very sleepy... 9/11..., at which point Thomas interrupted again to remind the spokesman:

"It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11."

This pissed him off sufficiently to respond to her personally:

"Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism..."

ABC's Terry Moran came to her aid. Read the whole transcript, it's very Center Cannot Hold.

See, former journalists? It's not that hard.