In this morning’s gaggle, Scott McClellan got asked whether the teleconference the president had with troops in Tikrit was scripted. Here’s what he said …

QUESTION: How were they selected, and are their comments to the president pre-screened, any questions or anything…

MCCLELLAN: No.

QUESTION: Not at all?

MCCLELLAN: This is a back-and-forth.

Here’s how the pool report (i.e., from the designated reporter on the scene) described what happened.

The soldiers, nine U.S. men and one U.S. woman, plus an Iraqi, had been tipped off in advance about the questions in the highly scripted event. Allison Barber, deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for internal communication, could be heard asking one soldier before the start of the event, "Who are we going to give that [question] to?"

Hat tip: Josh Marshall