Whore City (AP) -- The White House apologized Thursday for failing to invite a black congresswoman
from Georgia to join President Bush on his visit this week to one of the state's military bases.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was left out
through an "oversight" by the Smirk White House's legislative affairs office, Ari Fleischer lied.
He denied McKinney was deliberately excluded.

``That was an oversight that the White House regrets. She should have been invited,'' Fleischer said.

Bush visited Fort Stewart, Ga., on Monday as part of a weeklong focus on national security issues. He
was accompanied by Reps. Jack Kingston and Saxby Chambliss, both R-Ga., and Georgia's two
Democratic senators, Max Cleland and Zell Miller, the former governor.

McKinney wrote Smirk asking why she was not invited. ``Though the U.S. Army has 41.3 percent minority
composition, there was not a single minority congressional representative present at your visit,'' she said.

Another black member of Congress, Rep. Bobby Scott, was not part of Bush's visit Tuesday to Norfolk,
Va. Scott is the lone black member of Virginia's congressional delegation.

Fleischer said Scott was invited to attend the event in Norfolk. He said the only lawmakers accompanying
the president on Air Force One that day were members of the Armed Services Committee.

But Scott said in a telephone interview he never received an invitation from the White House to join the
official delegation or to travel to Norfolk along with other lawmakers.

He said that on Monday afternoon, ``in response to our inquiry, my staff was told that
I could make my own arrangements to get to Norfolk.''

Scott said there was ``never any indication of any invitation extended which informed me .... where I
could ever meet up with the delegation.''

Referring to Fleischer, he said, ``If that's what he's calling an invitation, that's more insulting than not
inviting me at all.''

Scott also said that contrary to Fleischer's assertion, lawmakers who are not on the Armed Services
Committee were invited to travel with Bush.
 

At least they weren't dragged behind a pickup truck.