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The other day I characterized Cadbury’s ever-changing, contradictory positions on Kraft‘s (KFT) bid for the company as “comical.” Today, the whole thing has become a full-on farce involving not only Cadbury (CBY) (Kraft has remained wisely silent), but also the Wall Street Journal and the rest of the business media.

The headline today is that Cadbury is backing off statements made earlier this week by its CEO, Todd Stitzer. On Wednesday, the Journal reported that, in an interview with the newspaper conducted on Monday, Stitzer appeared to have softened his stance toward Kraft’s $16.7 billion bid.

“I would never say there’s not some strategic sense in these businesses coming together,” the Journal quoted him as saying.

Sounds pretty clear. But Cadbury today issued a terse statement accusing everyone who thought they had understood plain English and reported what Stitzer said as having “misconstrued” his statement—though the company didn’t say how. “For the avoidance of doubt,” the statement continued, “Mr. Stitzer does not believe that Kraft’s proposal makes strategic or financial sense for Cadbury and his comments should not be interpreted in any other way.”

Well, that clears that up.

Soon after the bid was announced, Cadbury Chairman Roger Carr, in an open letter to Kraft, called that company a “low-growth conglomerate” and said the bid was “unappealing.” And even though Cadbury was already making contradictory statements at that time (the unappealing bid could be made more appealing if it were higher, the company hinted), the overall message was that Cadbury was against the merger.

Obviously, Stitzer was talking out of turn with his “strategic sense” comments. Maybe he’s torn between pleasing his stockholders and pleasing his potential employers at Kraft. If so, he’s mucked it up badly, and no doubt both companies are less than pleased with him at this point. That’s what happens when you talk out of both sides of your mouth.

Another odd thing concerning today’s reports about Cadbury’s backpedaling: Every one of them, including the Journal‘s own, make no mention of the Journal‘s earlier interview with Stitzer. All of them characterize Stitzer as having uttered the “strategic sense” line during an investor conference in London earlier this week.

That he made the statement during that conference was reported in a note by Bank of America (BAC) analyst Simon Archer, who also claimed that Stitzer said in a “private” meeting that he sees his job as getting the best price he can for Cadbury and that he didn’t expect Kraft to drop its bid.

So, it would appear that Stitzer said at least twice that a Kraft merger would make sense—once in a private meeting with investors and analysts, and once to the Wall Street Journal, even as the company’s chairman was on record saying the deal was no good. Why the Journal didn’t cite its own earlier story in today’s report, I have no idea.

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