The White House Press Corps has discovered the South Dakota Abortion ban story. I'm not sure how they heard about it since outside of the state of South Dakota it has received exactly one wire story. Perhaps, they read about it on a blog.

Proving once again that they will try to use any angle to get the 'Bush administration” to say something controversial, they squeezed the issue in between questions on Haiti and outsourcing:

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Les.

Q Thank you. The South Dakota State House of Representatives has just overwhelmingly passed a bill to outlaw all abortions, except to save the mother's life, with no regard for her health or if she's a victim of rape or incest. My question, the first of two: Does the President agree with this? Or does he feel it would be much wiser to oppose partial-birth abortion alone, given the Kerry-Edwards' record on that?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think the President's views are very well-known. The President is strongly committed to building a culture of life in America. This President has taken -- this President has taken steps to promote a culture of life in America. We worked to pass a ban on partial-birth abortion, which is a brutal procedure. The President has supported a number of efforts that will help build a culture of life.

[Attempting to interrupt] Q Does he support South Dakota?

[Ignoring the interuption] MR. McCLELLAN: He's stood up and opposed the cloning of human beings for reproductive or research purposes.

I love the way the question was framed, ”with no regard for her health” and 'it would be much wiser.” I'm not one to rant about 'liberal media bias” but I think this is ridiculous. Just ask the simple question, 'Does the President support the SD abortion ban? Yes or no?” Wording the question in that manner assured that a straightforward answer wouldn't -- couldn't -- be given.

The White House press corps is composed of a small, select group of journalists. They have unique access to the President and the administration and yet they squander their opportunities by playing silly word games. They should all be replaced by a single laptop and a White House intern. The intern could randomly sample blog posts and find out what the topics of discussion are for that day and ask one simple question for every one: 'What does the President think about…?” That's all we need from the "press." We'll gladly add the bias ourselves.

Update: Allen Glosson points out that the question came from Les Kinsolving, a columnist for World Net Daily. I had always thought WND was a conservative site but you wouldn't have got the impression from the press briefing. Kinsolving's editor claims this is another case where he "asks the tough questions no one else will ask."