We have known for some time that former White House Press secretary Scott McClellan was going to be critical of George W. Bush in his coming book (due out next week) “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”. But no one knew he was going to be as honest as the excerpts now being released. As Keith Olbermann noted tonight on Countdown, if one were to read the words without context, one would believe they were coming from a liberal. But they are in fact coming from a Bush loyalist.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. No doubt as time marches forward more people will come out with open condemnations of Bush, Cheney, Rove and the crew. But this is the first real salvo that will stick. I would like to believe that this work might result in some measure of accountability being forced upon the Bush White House, but we all know better than that by now. Most certainly this work will help cement Bush’s status as the worst president in American history.
And we all had front row seats. Charming.
One other note that I enjoyed was McClellan’s assertion that the “liberal media” was eating out of Bush’s hand during the build up to the war and didn’t properly do its job.
Helloooo… McFly? Now you know why I get most of my real news off the internet.
For his efforts, McClellan will likely be denounced harshly by the administration, but I am sure that the seven figure check he is enjoying from the book eases some of that pain for him. None the less, I am picking tonight to introduce a new OLV feature… The “Smiley”… awarded to those people who do the right thing in a significant manner and/or under difficult circumstances. And since McClellan is demonstrating the courage to be the first real insider to come out of the White House and blow the whistle, I’ll go out on a limb and award it to Scott McClellan five days before I will even be able to read his book. The excerpts alone make it clear that this is going to be a real look into the shame and corruption of this administration. So thank you, Scott.
Exclusive: McClellan whacks Bush, White House
By MIKE ALLEN | 5/27/08 6:18 PM ESTFormer White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
A few reporters were offered advance copies of the book, with the restriction that their stories not appear until Sunday, the day before the official publication date. Politico declined and purchased “What Happened” at a Washington bookstore.
The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as “authentic” and “sincere,” is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.
