Former White House spokesmonkey Scott McClellan has a new book in which he’s critical of his former boss:
President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception” to justify his political ends, Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, writes in a critical new memoir about his years in the West Wing.
In addition, Mr. McClellan writes, the decision to invade Iraq was a “serious strategic blunder,” and yet, in his view, it was not the biggest mistake the Bush White House made. That, he says, was “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
Mr. McClellan’s book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” is the first negative account by a member of the tight circle of Texans around Mr. Bush. Mr. McClellan, 40, went to work for Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas and was the White House press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006.
Not that he’s wrong, but Scott, what were you doing all that time? Oh, right, actively participating in the whole shabby enterprise. Ain’t America grand? You can help your boss lie to the people and then make some money writing book about how bad it was.
Mr. McClellan does not exempt himself from failings — “I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be” — and calls the news media “complicit enablers” in the White House’s “carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval” in the march to the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003.
Again, he’s not wrong, but perhaps McClellan is not the one to be criticizing enablers here? Well, at least writing the book might get him onto Oprah for a much-needed hug.
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Yes, he deserves his helping of scorn for being an active participant, but at least some of the people involved are fessing up. (not just the ‘librul’ media making up stories).
well, there’s certainly precedent. David wotshisname… GOP attack poodle turned gay apologist. wrote a book. sold lots of em. it’s still possible to retrieve one’s sense of right vs. wrong post-facto so cut him some slack and get off the high road because few of us have done much differently in preserving one’s income.
I still think he’s the one that that whore/reporter (Jeff Gannon/Gucker?) was doing on those White House sign-in logs but that’s pure speculation.
Well, I think Brock is pretty smarmy too.
What seems to be lacking in everything I’ve read about the book (and no, I haven’t read the whole thing) is any sense of contrition. Brock at least went and started Media Matters and has been putting a lot of energy into countering the kind of crap he used to be part of. The faith based initiative guy (whose name escapes me at this early hour) did his tell-all book, but spent a lot of it describing his own disillusionment with what went on. McClellan seems to be out for a buck, and it just seems really different.
well, we’ll see if he follows in Brock’s footsteps. He might as well since he’s burned all possible bridges at this point.
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