It’s somewhat sad to see what is happening to Scottie McClellan. Even when he was spinning like an Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuge, I always felt a strange kind of sympathy for Scottie. Now I know why. I recognized a sliver of humanity in him that is lacking in all other Bushite sycophants. McClellan has come (oh, I don’t know…) 60% clean in his new tell-part book and the White House and their apologists are calling him ‘Benedict Arnold’, ‘a traitor’, ‘a turncoat’, a ‘Hamas apologist’ (???), and “probably the worst White House press secretary in recent memory.”
Maybe McClellan and Bill Richardson can start a club. They can call it ‘The Judas Club’. It will be for anyone that served in an administration and later lived to regret it. McClellan’s got it really bad (except for his anticipated book sales) because even the left is piling on. Why did he go out there day after day after day and spin like a break dancer for an administration that he knew didn’t know how to govern or how to tell the truth? Isn’t it too late for Scottie to come to Jesus?
Well, I say, ‘better now than after the administration is out of power’. No matter how badly you screw up there is always the best thing for you to do now. And if you can make a profit off it, so much the better. This is fucking America, and don’t you ever forget it.
As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided. In these pages, I’ve tried to come to grips with some of the truths that life inside the White House bubble obscured.
It was so hard to hate Scottie, even when he took weaseldom to previously unheard of levels.
GREGORY: Scott … to make a general observation here, in a previous administration, if a press secretary had given the sort of answers you’ve just given … Republicans would have hammered them as having a kind of legalistic and sleazy defense. I mean, the reality is that you’re parsing words, and you’ve been doing it for a few days now. So does the president think Karl Rove did something wrong, or doesn’t he?
McCLELLAN: No, David, I’m not at all. I told you and the president told you earlier today that we don’t want to prejudge the outcome of an ongoing investigation. And I think we’ve been round and round on this for two days now…
GREGORY: … When you’re dealing with a covert operative … a senior official of the government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way, shape or form. Does the president agree with that or not?
McCLELLAN: Again, we’ve been round and round on this for a couple of days now. I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve said the previous two days.
GREGORY: That’s a different question, and it’s not round and round —
McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier.
GREGORY: It has nothing to do with the investigation, Scott, and you know it.
McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier today, and the president said he’s not —
[Pitch, volume and tempo are rising…]
GREGORY: That’s a dodge to my question. It has nothing to do with the investigation. Is it appropriate for a senior official to speak about a covert agent in any way, shape or form without first finding out whether that person is working as a covert officer?
McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, you’re wrong. This is all relating to questions about an ongoing investigation, and I’ve been through this.
GREGORY: If I wanted to ask you about an ongoing investigation, I would ask you about the statute, and I’m not doing that. [Very exasperated.]
McCLELLAN: I think we’ve exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days.
GREGORY: You haven’t even scratched the surface.
But to reminisce about those days is to pick at a scab. Scottie McClellan feels remorse about his performance during l’affaire Plame and now he’s blaming the press for not asking tougher questions. As Karl Rove said, McClellan sounds like a left-wing blogger. I don’t want to betray confidences, but I have it first-hand from a McClatchey White House reporter than McClellan was a swell guy that always tried to tell the truth. It’s just that, nine times out of ten, the truth wasn’t on the menu. And we’ve all regretted going to a bad restaurant or two.
Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegations that the media was soft on the White House are “total crap,” adding that advisers of President Bush are “bewildered and puzzled” by the allegations in McClellan’s new book.
“It’s almost like we’re witnessing an out-of-body experience,” Bartlett said of McClellan. “We’re hearing from a completely different person we didn’t have any insight into.”
Deep down, Scottie McClellan had, maybe not an ounce, but a gram of humanity and that’s something that the Dan Bartlett’s of the world just don’t have any insight into. If you want ‘insight’, you probably should ask Speaker Pelosi.
”I almost wonder how anybody associated with this war, unless they were of completely different philosophy, would not come to the conclusion that this war is a grotesque mistake, that it was misrepresented from the start, not prepared for correctly,” said Pelosi.
”This war is a big lie. It was a lie to begin with..and it continues to be a lie..at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to carry,” she said of the former White House spokesman.
Did McClellan ask for forgiveness? If he did, it will be forthcoming.
With all due respect, I’m going to have to side with the Rude Pundit on this one.
Rude link
Yeah, I have very little tolerance for stupid people put in important positions. He let himself be used and now he wants to say that he had no idea that there was gambling going on in this establishment.
Please he’s either a liar or the most gullible person on the planet – neither option makes me feel sorry for that pear-shaped loser.
I have all kinds of wonderfully horrid things I want to write about fecal matter and McClellan’s mouth, but I’ll abstain. I am wearing my Scotty Show t-shirt today in honor of the Moonfaced Wonder who gave us the shittiest lies without having the decency to fake it. And if he’s shocked over the treatment he’s receiving from the WH, then I’ll be even happier. Especially after all the bullshit character assassination he did from behind that podium on so many other whistleblowers and “turncoats”.
Fuck Scott McClellan.
off topic, but anyone know who’s minting these coins:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/38820.html
This is kind of strange. The Bible is one of our holy books, so one one hand there’s no need to be offended. Yet, I’m sure many of the people passing these out, hell most Americans probably don’t know that the Bible is considered one of the holy books in Islam, so clearly, there’s a proselytizing angle to this.
But where are the coins coming from? Big question. And I wonder if the soldiers passing them out know what it says.
It sounds like the sort of dim proselytizing Rod Parsley, John Hagee, or some other McCain affiliate would do. Hopefully one that hasn’t been denied and repudiated yet.
Let this man repeat the whole spiel under oath, if he has the guts, and then I’ll see what I think about him. And about the U.S., remember, you can make money on war, even by being the presiden’t press secretary, betraying the world, helping many people to their death and finally turning around and lamenting the horrid behavior of your employer while playing the vicitm. No, this man was a convinced memeber of the club who has decided to save his sorry ass. Does he apologize anywhere? I’m not going to waste my time reading the details. We known nearly all of them anyway. I must be clairvoyant or he must take me for a fool. Which is it? Their war and whole administration were and remain a total rip-off.
Too many former members of this administration have found their conscience only when they got a book deal. Let’s see them march at a peace rally.
I have to ask one thing. After the first announcement, why is the blogosphere giving this little shit free advertisement and PR? Scottie is like all Republicans and would sell his mother’s soul for a dime. Are we really surprised he wrote a tell all book? Will I help line this skunk’s pocket with more money to read about the lies I already know about? The answer is NO to both questions.
heh. Guess we’re not a very forgiving group.
And it is a tell-part book, not tell-all.
NO I am not.
For years commenters (including hundreds in this medium) have talked about Bush’s fundamentalist approach to foreign policy. Most interesting to me was the confirmation that he was convinced–from the start–that this was an effort to impose “democratic imperialism” and that when he had made up his mind about something on a “religious” basis, no facts need get in the way.
Now we all knew that, but to have a so-called friend and close associate say it aloud is scary, because he is confirming that our President is simply not sane. So why would people allow him to wreak havoc on the nation and the world knowing that? Because his blindness got them money and power. When the money gets cut off, those folks resort to book tours.
Thanks for the link Oscar. His Rudeness doesn’t even come close to what I feel for this miserable piece of execrement.
She’s all talk.
What has she done to stop the funding of the big lie?
And has criticism of her stopped because she’s leaning toward Obama?
You do have to feel a bit of empathy for someone who lied and was then betrayed by the people he covered for.
As someone aid before…he has to spill all the beans or face what John Dean wrote of before regarding the federal anti-conspiracy laws that were violated.
He better save the money from this book to help his family if he goes to jail.
Howie Klein:
OMG! LOL! Another reason Scoot will talk. He won’t make it in jail.
Put me down as a mild supporter of McClellan. I share the perspective of the BooMan. McClellan just didn’t seem venal like Ari Fleischer or Tony Snow.
He was pretty interesting on the Today show this morning. Talked about “manipulating the narrative” and while he’s confusing about how much he likes/admires Bush, overall I think McClellan will be a small, but significant, datum proving the case that the Iraq War was promoted and defended using lies.
I don’t understand your sympathy for McClellan. He had to be aware he was lying when he was parked at that podium. His job was disinformation — disinformation is part of the propaganda network this administration has in play. McClellan is no different than the generals on the dole and appearing on all the news programs. So if all the generals apologize or expose this administration — then they will get the same sympathy?
If the war crime tribunals ever come into play — which no one will bet on that happening — at best McClellan will be a witness for the prosecution. Until then, sure, let’s be thankful he has spoken up — but he’s still a rat — a lying rat and for every one of his lies there lies a dead soldier and 25 dead Iraqis.
Yeah, put me down as a mild supporter. I’m not super-enthusiastic about Scottie, but he was always a sort-of okay kinda guy. The nuggets he’s given us lefties are reasonably revealing and politically useful.
The guy I REALLY wanted to see some good info from was Colin Powell. He had a time way back when he could have come over to the side of the good guys. He decided to stay on the fence. I don’t think he’ll EVER get his reputation back to what it was prior to Feb 03.
I agree with Booman. I always thought there was a great sadness about McClellan, and when he left the White House I thought strongly that we would be hearing from him again, and that it might be a welcome event. I can understand the anger and disappointment/disgust that many feel, however. The same feelings rise in my gorge whenever I watch or listen to Dana Perino do her little mendacious song and dance. But, even knowing that it has come to seem that the press secretary’s job (whether they understand it as such is questionable) is to lie, and hopefully do so convincingly, I find some measure of sympathy for McClellan. And there are two points that, at least for me, somewhat mitigate McClellan’s “collusion.” First of all, I sincerely doubt that any of the other Bush press secretaries will ever publish a book that pulls aside the imperial-president curtain. (I think that Fleischer, Snow, and Perino will be lying to themselves about the Bush administration until the ends of their lives.) And, McClellan has managed to do what the press and progressive activists have been unable to do – put the dishonesty involved in getting into our war on (occupation of) Iraq and the shameful outing of a covert operative back into the spotlight. Such exposure can only serve the liberal and progressive movement, contribute to the election of a Democratic president, and move this country forward toward reconciliation with its Constitution and the rule of law. For that, and for whatever small contribution is made by McClellan, we can afford to be forgiving.