From WNYKRC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Ari Fleischer, probably the least-liked White House spokesman since the late Ron Ziegler, announced his resignation this week.

And like Ziegler, who was Nixon's mouthpiece, Fleischer has served a president who famously loathes the press. Also, like Ziegler,

Fleischer is notorious for fabrication, misdirection, and bullying from the podium. Slate columnist

Tim Noah has closely followed Fleischer's tenure, and he joins me now from Washington. Tim,

welcome back to the show. Thank you. First, could you take us through some of Fleischer's signature techniques?

You've made a study of what you call his whoppers.

Do they follow a pattern?

There's one particular kind of Fleischer-Wopper that I find particularly impressive.

That's when you get caught in a lie, and several months later you repeat the lie without the slightest bit of shame.

And that came up when he was at a press conference and was asked why the president was suddenly

in favor of nation building. During the campaign, the president did not express, as you put it,

disdain for nation building. What the president said is the military should be used for the purpose of fighting and winning

wars exactly as we did in Afghanistan.

And then there are other areas of the government that actively are involved, should be

involved, and will be involved in nation building.

He bluffed saying that Bush was only against nation building when it was done by the military.

And that turned out not to be true.

Bush had said in one of the presidential debates that he was against nation building by the

military and by civilian authorities.

Fleischer said this completely deadpan, got called on it, and then several

months later repeated it completely deadpan once again.

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