Et tu, Scott? Bush’s former press secretary stabs him in the back -The iPINIONS Journal

Evidently, President Bush still has a few dead-enders who are prepared to do anything to save what little remains of the credibility of his administration. Because they were popping up all over TV yesterday putting political band aids on the bleeding wounds former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan inflicted with his just published tell-all book, which is titled What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.

The most sensational parts of the book deal with McClellan’s searing, even if self-serving, condemnation of the war in Iraq. Because, after selling it for years with the zealotry of a born-again Christian, he now claims that the invasion of Iraq was a “serious strategic blunder,” and that Bush relied on an aggressive “political propaganda campaign instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war.”

In addition, McClellan reveals that, with the invasion of Iraq:

Bush saw his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness…. The president’s real motivation for the war was to transform the Middle East to ensure an enduring peace in the region.

As revelations go, however, this ranks right up there with the revelation that the Sun rises in the East. After all, McClellan is merely parroting what some of us have been saying for years – even before this ill-fated war began with a “shock and awe” thud.

Specifically, here’s what I wrote in April 2007 about one of the neo-cons who McClellan accuses of ill-serving the president in this respect:

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense [Paul Wolfowitz] was the principal architect of the “domino” plan to democratize the Middle East that misled American soldiers into the current mess in Iraq.

And here’s what I wrote in September 2006 about Bush’s real motivation:

President Bush conflated retribution for 9/11 with his ill-fated crusade to democratize the Middle East, and then launched a preemptive war against Iraq.

McClellan also waxes indignant about Vice President Dick Cheney. In fact, he describes him as “the magic man” whose invisible hands were behind every doomed White House policy. In this respect, in addition to the invasion of Iraq, he cites the White House’s orchestrated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame – as retribution against her husband for daring to debunk their lies about WMDs as a pretext for the Iraq war.

But in October 2005, on the eve of the indictment of Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, for his role in the Plame affair, here’s what I wrote should become of Cheney for conducting this White House “weapons of mass deception” program:

If he is favored by the gods, someone he genuinely respects (like his wife Laura) will do for President Bush what Nancy Reagan did for her husband President Ronald Reagan when his presidency was in similar crisis: advise him to get rid of the ring leader of this White House cabal, namely, Vice President Dick Cheney – who, after all, will be an un-indicted co-conspirator if Libby is indicted. The country deserves this act of enlightened courage and Bush’s legacy demands it.

Alas, despite all of the furor (and backlash against the author) it has incited, the only thing truly telling about this tell-all book is the fact that McClellan is the first member of Bush’s Texas posse, which included Karl Rove, Harriet Myers and Alberto Gonzalez, to betray him. And what a profitable betrayal it’s proving to be: after all, reports are that his book is already a bestseller (no doubt because Bush’s legions of political enemies relish McClellan’s insider’s account of all they’ve ever suspected of his administration’s lies and deception).

Meanwhile, on behalf of the dead-enders at the White House, McClellan’s successor as press secretary, Dana Perino, offered this pithy party-line response:

Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew.

However, I believe the indignation Bush loyalists are hurling at McClellan for writing this book is every bit as disingenuous as the indignation McClellan hurls at his former colleagues in it. Because on the one hand, Bush loyalists know that all of McClellan’s claims are true; while on the other hand, McClellan had to have known they were true when he was steadfastly denying them as press secretary from May 2003 to April 2006.

Therefore, my only criticism of McClellan is the same one I made of former Secretary of State Colin Powell after he wrote a similar confessional memoir, namely: if he had such grave misgivings about the administration’s conspiracy to wage an unlawful war, he should have resigned and voiced his concerns in a more timely and public-spirited manner.

Beyond that I say take the money and run Scott! But spare us the sanctimonious claptrap about hoping to change the culture of politics in Washington.…

Comments

MEDIAMAN says

May 29, 2008 at 6:19 pm

McClellan -New Book, Hero, Telling truth, shinning light on the Liars…

Those who would use the word “Patriot” in the Name of a document and law to take away the rights of Americans should be in prision for life. As its the Plan to inprision Americans…McClellan Is a True Patriot, and my personal hero! Those who would use the word “Patriot” in the Name of a document and law to take away the rights of Americans should be in prision for life. As its the Plan to inprision Americans…

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