I'm not sure I've felt sorrier for anyone in the Bush administration more than what I did for Scott McClellan. During the McClellan days I was a frequenter in DC. So I found myself watching almost daily the president's press briefings. Those are some of my fondest memories of politics. It was a time when everyone knew there was total chaos in the Bush administration but you couldn't get anyone to admit it. It was excruciating to watch McClellan stumble through those gaggles. It was almost as if he didn't know anything about anything whatsoever. And this went on for almost three years.
I'm sure by now everyone has read or at least heard about McClellan's new book “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception." If you haven't here's a link. All you have to do is read the title to know that it's not going to be very flattering to Bush & Co. McClellan covers everything from the invasion of Iraq to Hurricane Katrina to the Plame leak to being lied to by the administration to the use of propaganda to sell a war to the American public.
As expected the Bush administration isn't going to comment just yet. But Karl Rove already has and just as expected he wants to divide the political culture a little bit more by saying the book reads like a left wing blog instead of by a former colleague. As with everything Bush, if you aren't with us, you're against us. You're either staying the course or a left wing blogger. This sort of Karl Rove mentality to politics is so old. It's really proven nothing but disaster for the GOP and especially for Bush.
The right wing isn't going to like this book and they'll say McClellan is motivated by money and that he's now become part of the "liberal press." Or that he's just wanting some attention and has a vendetta since he was canned by Bush. Sorry excuses for a very sorry group of people.
*Update:
Like clockwork the right wing is predictably jumping all over Scott McClellan today. Fox News, with the help of it's Republican lineup, is leaving on its front web page Rove's response to McClellan's new book where he calls McClellan a liberal blogger. Also, I just heard über patriot Sean Hannity, who is also a Fox News host, on his radio show say that McClellan is no doubt taking the "liberal" line with his book. And the super serious The Corner is having a heyday with McClellan even questioning his "conservativeness" because he supposedly enjoyed a college course taught by Sara Weddington. Geez, my favorite college course was taught by a neocon. Does that make me any less of a Democrat?
The biggest thing I'm seeing from the right wing is their questioning of McClellan's duty to the country if what he says in the book is true. If McClellan had objections to Bush's policy why didn't he raise them when he was their spokesman, so the right's argument goes. Here's Seth Leibsohn, also from The Corner doing his best to discredit McClellan based on his "duty":
And I'll just leave you with this — having not read the book and having no plans to do so: don't you think that when someone has an objection to what is being done, they owe it to the public and as a mark of duty to do something about it or say something about it at the time, rather than wait two years and save it for a book? Does that in and of itself not cut down some of the credibility.Seth's whole post is rather odd indeed. In it he asks a very fundamental question that seems to be rather rhetorical and painfully obvious.
The first thing to ask about these kinds of books is "does it help history, does it shed light, does it add to the sum total of knowledge about a topic history or contemporary analysis can use to shed light on an administration?" OR, rather, "is this a self-aggrandizing after-the-fact justification to bolster one's own reputation and credibility?" especially after having done such a poor job in the first place.Interesting. So a book from Bush's former press secretary that states the Bush administration used propaganda to sell a needless war to the American people, was entirely involved in the Plame leak cover up, and poorly mismanaged if not entirely neglected its duty during the worst natural disaster to ever hit this country, doesn't shed any new light on the history of the Bush presidency? Seth mostly concludes it doesn't shed any new light because we all already knew it. In other words, we don't need a book telling us what we already know. But for writing the first behind the scenes book from the Bush inner-circle, Scottie is following a liberal line, disavowing his duty to his country and only doing it for vengeance and money. Don't state the obvious appears to be what the right is saying. This makes the phrase reality has a liberal bias all the more understandable.
I think we'll probably find this book is mostly of the latter category.
Editor's Note: in the original title Scottie was spelled as Scotty. I realized it was an error and corrected it.
**Update:
Just for the record, Scott McClellan is a tool. Always has been a tool and always will be. His book that he somehow wants us to believe is all in hindsight is just a part of his tooldom.
2 comments:
Watching Scott during his tenure as press secretary you got the impression that he was, as you say, "a tool." The press ate him alive. He was a terrible p.s. And so I think the decision to put him in that job was a bad decision by the President.
Obviously, I haven't yet read the book. But from the excerpts I have reviewed McClellan discredits himself by spouting Left wing talking points. There's no difference in what he writes in this new book and what the nuts at Kos and Huffington have been saying for the last five years.
As I posted on my blog, it seems to me that McClellan, for all his access and proximity, would have had something different to talk about in his book.
The right wing isn't disputing what the book says, only that he says it. Or like you say, spouts left wing talking points. Just like I say in the post, your comment also gives a better understanding of the phrase reality has a liberal bias.
Post a Comment