One week ago, President Bush held a press conference, during which he posed the following rhetorical question: “What’s worse, that the government knew or that the government didn’t know?” At the time, he was responding to a query about the allegation that Iranian forces had been involved in smuggling weapons into Iraq. Mr. Bush seemed to infer that, one way or another, the Iranian government was culpable—whether because (a) they had knowledge and either endorsed or allowed such activity to occur, or (b) they did not have a clue and all sorts of nasty things were happening on their watch.

Fast forward five days to Tony Snow’s press briefing at the White House, where he was asked about the President’s reaction to the Washington Post’s recent exposé on the terrible conditions many wounded soldiers are being forced to endure at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Snow waffled on what Bush knew and when he knew it, saying that “the President certainly has been aware of the conditions in the wards where he has visited.” At some point after the press briefing, the transcript was posted on the White House website and modified to include the following statement:

* The President first learned of the troubling allegations regarding Walter Reed from the stories this weekend in the Washington Post. He is deeply concerned and wants any problems identified and fixed.

So here’s my follow-up question. “What’s worse, that the government knew or that the government didn’t know?”