What Is This World Coming To?

According to former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, pretty much every single item on the Democrat Party’s talking points list about George W. Bush is true. At least, its true if you believe Scott McClellan. And if his Amazon.com position is any indication, there are about a million rea$on$ to be skeptical.

“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term. And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”

McClelland’s job was to be open and forthright on Iraq. If he knew back then what he is saying in his book, then why didn’t he say something? If he didn’t know, then he does he know that Bush did?

“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.”

“If Bush had only listened to me . . . (sigh) McClelland even found a way to resurrect the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby story, despite the fact that everybody NOW knows that the leak was undersecretary of State Richard Armitage.

“I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood,” McClellan writes. “It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively. I didn’t learn that what I’d said was untrue until the media began to figure it out almost two years later.”

The media figured it out? When did that happen? The media hasn’t gotten the story right yet. It was Joe Wilson, (who nobody can deny knew that she worked for the CIA) that called down the spotlight on him and his family by launching an attack against his own government in time of war. Wilson was no media novice — he opened his attack by writing an op-ed piece for the New York Times.

When Richard Clarke published a similarly spurious and innuendoed account of his time as counter-terrorism chief (”If they’d only listened to me!”) entitled “Against all Enemies” then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan said this:

“Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let’s look at the politics of it. His best buddy is Rand Beers, who is the principal foreign policy advisor to Senator Kerry’s campaign. The Kerry campaign went out and immediately put these comments up on their website that Mr. Clarke made. …”

So Scott comes along and writes a book timed for release in the ‘heat of a presidential campaign’. Certainly, let’s look at the politics of it.

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill wrote his book, The Price of Loyalty” (said price, evidently, being a fat book deal ) McClellan dismissed it out of hand:

“It appears to be more about trying to justify personal views and opinions than it does about looking at the results that we are achieving on behalf of the American people. If you look back at his past comments and his past actions, they contradict his current rhetoric. I talked to you all a little bit about that earlier today. Go back and look at exactly what he has said in the past and compare that with what he is saying today.”

Back at ya, Scott!