Or something. President Barack Obama, through his Press Secretary Josh Earnest, says that helping with a ransom payment isn’t paying ransom.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the FBI helped the family of Warren Weinstein make a ransom payment to his al-Qaeda captors by vetting a Pakistani middleman who helped deliver the money.

Here’s Obama, through Earnest:

Speaking generally, helping with a ransom payment…is not tantamount to paying a ransom….

Yeah. And my grandson isn’t pulling the cat’s tail; he’s just holding on. The cat is doing the pulling.