Even Goyal and Les Kinsolving couldn't knock the White House press corps off their game today. After a weekend of news, Scott McClellan faced his most sustained day of questioning in a week today from reporters covering the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

McClellan faced question after question about the President's words this morning and whether there was a new standard being laid down. And, in a day of questioning unusually dominated by the briefing room's female correspondents (the Big Three Men--NBC's David Gregory, CBS's John Roberts, and ABC's Terry Moran--were missing from their front row seats), Helen Thomas asked what was taking so long, American Urban Radio's April Ryan asked about the damage to the Wilson family, ABC's Jessica Yellin asked about a White House credibility problem, and even freelancer Connie Lawn asked Scott personally how he was holding up under the questioning.

[It might be worth noting that Lawn labeled the situation a "crisis" and Scott, normally one to parse words like none other, didn't object to her characterization.]

After facing as much as he could, McClellan floundered for a safe question or a momentum killer: he went back to Goyal, who actually launched into a diatribe about how rude it was that the Prime Minister of India's visit today was being overshadowed by the Rove investigation, forcing McClellan to croak a "Your opinion has been noted." Then he turned to Fox's Carl Cameron, whose network ABC's Moran last week accused to being "friendly" to the President, only to face another leak investigation question. Finally, grasping at his last straw, McClellan called on Les Kinsolving, who also asked about Karl Rove.

Everyone wants to know some answers. In response to Lawn's question, McClellan offered a half-hearted there's-nothing-I-enjoy-more-than-being-grilled line and said that he hoped to have a "continuing constructive relationship with everyone in this room."

After a week of increasingly convoluted "no comments," many White House correspondents would question whether he has any sort of "constructive relationship" with the press corps.