Swatting a Saddam Story

I sympathize with federal public affairs officials who must decide which news reports are simply too outlandish to justify comment, and which they should make an effort to bat down. Apparently, Pentagon press officials think a recent report in a London-based Arab newspaper that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took a meeting with Saddam Hussein fell on the latter side of that line, and felt compelled to issue two separate statements dismissing it as "absolutely ludicrous" and "patent drivel."