nobody’s opinions

Like many others, I have been waiting for a “man behind the curtain” moment to descend on Barack Obama. It may have come in a literal sense.

Dana Milbank reports in The Washington Post that when Obama was pressed by reporters on NAFTAgate and Rezkogate at a news conference in San Antonio Monday (the day before the Texas primary):

Obama responded with the classic phrases of a politician in trouble. “That was the information that I had at the time. . . . Those charges are completely unrelated to me. . . . I have said that that was a mistake. . . . The fact pattern remains unchanged.”

When those failed, Obama tried another approach. “We’re running late,” the candidate said, and then he disappeared behind a curtain.

Read the whole story. I particularly enjoyed this turn of phrase:

[T]he grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog.

And what, may I ask, is a “fact pattern,” and how does it differ from “the facts”?