When life hands you lemons, so the saying goes, you make lemonade. But what happens when the FCC and the Justice Department hand you an almost certain public defeat? If you’re AT&T, the answer is simple: you make denial-ade.

At least, that seemed to be the case Wednesday when, during a panel discussion at the 39th annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, AT&T CFO John Stephens proclaimed the company and Deutsche Telecom are still “motivated to complete a transaction and we continue to pursue the sale.”

He added, presumably with a straight face and no outward sign that he was about to break out in maniacal laughter, that “it’s for our customers. It’s a solid, strategic move that will help us provide better service, while addressing the spectrum concerns that everyone in the industry shares.”

Brave words, considering how the FCC roundly humiliated AT&T on the day it granted the company’s request to withdraw its T-Mobile merger application by making public a searing internal report that showed tremendous potential harm to consumers if the deal were to go forward.

Alas, though it would appear AT&T expects to win its still-pending courtroom fight with the Department of Justice, this is likely what is known in publicly-humiliated-Southern-Belle circles as ‘putting on a brave face’. Statements made later in the discussion suggest that AT&T may be planning for the worst. “As I said before,” Stephens said, “we are going to continue to work with our partner DT, Deutsche Telekom, and work toward a resolution of the transaction.

Those conversations, as they occur, if and when they occur, and as they occur with the Department of Justice, will be kept confidential out of respect for them and for our partners and in hopes to improve the opportunity for the process to be successful.”

Anyone familiar with the unctuousness of the typical MBA should recognize that phrases like “if and when” are never thrown out casually. They could mean nothing, of course, but it certainly sounds like a stealth admission that Deutsche Telecom knows the deal ist kaput and is shopping around for a new T-Mobile buyer, something AT&T is keen to avoid.

Which is to say, this is AT&T’s way of standing outside Deutsche Telecom’s window blasting a Peter Gabriel song. In the meantime, AT&T and the Department of Justice are set to resume hostilities tomorrow, with a previously-postponed status hearing regarding the planned February 13 trial. Whether the events that have occurred since the last hearing have any effect on proceedings remains to be seen, but we will be paying close attention.