coached

i really loved the headline of this article "bush, cheney coached for 9/11 questioning" because it breaks a linguistic taboo in the legal profession. you don't coach a witness--that's witness tampering. you prepare your witness. "preparation" is not viewed as criminal, but rather simply helping your witness get his or her thoughts together

i also love how the article notes:

Their testimony will not be under oath, but White House spokesman Scott McClellan said they "will tell it exactly how it happened."

one can only wonder why bush and cheney are not willing to swear that what they say is accurate. technically this means that if there is a conflict between what bush and cheney say and anyone else's testimony, the sworn testimony should trump the unsworn statements and be presumed to be the correct account. in other words, the only difference between a sworn and unsworn statement is that the sworn statement has more credibility.

the only reason bush and cheney would want to avoid giving sworn testimony is if they are afraid of perjury. which suggests to me that they don't intend to tell the truth. which, i suppose, is why they are being coached on what to say.