Obama: Hey W, Sorry My Team Are Immature Idiots

The Obama transition team still thinks they're in election mode:

President Bush did not offer a "quid pro quo" linking relief for automakers to a Colombia Free Trade deal in his meeting on Monday with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, the president-elect's transition team leader said Tuesday.

John Podesta said he wanted to clear up misreporting by newspapers that detailed a leak of the on-on-one meeting between the president and president-elect.

"While the topic of Colombia came up ... there was no quid pro quo in the conversation," Podesta said. "The president didn't try to link Colombia to the question of an economic recovery package going forward. They talked about both of them."

Podesta added that the reports were "not accurate" and the Obama team has "cleared up the confusion" after the White House complained that Bush was irked by news that the conversation had been cast as a trade-off between Bush signing a second stimulus package in exchange for congressional passage of the Colombia Free Trade Act.

The paper in question was the NY Times and the Obama people absolutely leaked the story to cast the current President in a bad light by insinuating he attempted to barter using the auto workers as a bargaining chip. It doesn't matter if it's true, it's how they wanted to frame the discussion. Drudge reported that the administration was pissed (and used strong language to get their point across) and Podesta rushed to calm the situation, which shows just who has the upper hand at this point as Bush is offering a transition like no president ever has and Obama's people are pulling sophomoric shit like this. Obama had to be upset by the leak as it shows them to be not quite ready for prime time players and told Podesta to handle it, pronto.

Obama had best ensure that he keeps the leaks to a minimum as every reporter who fawned over Obama during the election feels they are owed one and will print every leak they receive. Just as Bush put his staff on lock down during his first term, so must Obama or he will face some unpleasant days.