State Department Spokesman Hadn’t Seen POGO Brush-Off

As an addendum to this post, I see Ian Kelly, a spokesman for the State Department, had this exchange with a reporter today over the propriety of the department’s response to the Project on Government Oversight, which gave State a welter of information about contractor ArmorGroup’s abuses in Kabul:

QUESTION: No, no, no, hold on. Ian, POGO says that it’s got no response from you guys to its 10-page letter to Secretary Clinton about the Embassy in Kabul, the guards at the Embassy in Kabul. And the response that they got is a – refers them to the daily press briefing, the answers that were given on – I believe it was September 1^st. Is that really an appropriate response to an oversight or to – you know, a group that sent you – that compiled all this information and –
MR. KELLY: You’re saying this was their response to – POGO?
QUESTION: No, no. This was the State – State Department’s response to POGO to the 10-page letter that was sent to Secretary Clinton.
MR. KELLY: Well –
QUESTION: It’s a very short one-line – one or two-line thing that says, “We refer — ” you know, it provides them with the link –
MR. KELLY: Yeah.
QUESTION: — the URL to the month – to that transcript.
QUESTION: It almost looks computer-generated.
MR. KELLY: Can I see that? Do you have a copy of it?
QUESTION: Sure.
MR. KELLY: Okay.
QUESTION: You posted it.
MR. KELLY: All right. I’d like to see it and then we can comment on it.

Tomorrow’s briefing is going to be rad.