Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s got a full load on his hands between media rounds and bank deposits while promoting his new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. The book is a scathing indictment of the Bush administration by one of the chief pitchmen for a massive, flag-draped bag of lies that enabled the hijacking of an entire nation during three of the most crucial years this generation has ever seen. If that strikes you as contradictory, hypocritical even, then buckle the fuck up, because there’s a lot more to be found under this rock.
At first glance, What Happened seems to be a balls-out assault on the White House from “the inside,” albeit an unoriginal one. But a little sharper focus brings the backpedaling, ass-covering flavor of it all into clear view: McClellan writes that Bush “signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was less than candid and honest,” just before issuing this disclaimer about his former boss: “I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people.”
When asked on the Today show if he lied to the American public during his employment, he acknowledged that he may have “unknowingly… passed along false information,” only to admit seconds later that he “got caught up in the Washington game in terms of the spinning and obviscation and secrecy and things like that.”
Which one is it, Scott? Were you a hapless, unwitting pawn, or a mechanic on the juggernaut of deceit?
McClellan’s a pasty, sniveling hypocrite who had no trouble cashing the administration’s checks and lying to the American public for three humiliating years, and now he stands to profit massively from telling us what we already know. He was a staunch, chief defender of the Bush’s initial ignore-and-avoid approach to Katrina, of the Iraq invasion, the Valerie Plame fiasco and an untold number of other deceptions. I remember his mole-like smirking face from White House press conferences between 2003 and 2006, lying like an amateur with shifty eyes and the defensive posturing of a kid who’s yet to figure out how his parents always know when he’s lying. I remember thinking Jesus, this guy’s a poker shark’s wet fucking dream. Seriously, what’s the selection process for a job like that? How did this guy get hired to sell us on the Bush administration’s crazy fucking funhouse of bullshit?
Last week, Scotty was telling anyone who would sign a check listen how bitter he was to have been pushed to leave his White House position earlier than he had planned, as well as the fact that he was sometimes kept out of the loop on key decision-making sessions. Interestingly, it’s those very exclusions that enable him to deny any major involvement in some of the administration’s biggest blunders, particularly the decision to go to war and the campaign to sell that decision to the American people. It’s only fair to say that he doesn’t spare himself entirely, saying at one point, “I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be.” But what exactly does that mean, Scotty? I get the feeling there are still some things you’re not telling us.
Anyway, he goes on to include criticism for the reporters whose questions he fielded while on the job. The news media, he says, were “complicit enablers,” of a dishonest administration, for focusing more on “covering the march to war instead of the necessity of war.” That’s a bit like the pot factory calling the kettle black, no? Are you saying you’re pissed that we didn’t make your job harder for you?
McClellan spent three years demanding that we gorge ourselves on the toxic heaps of bullshit he helped dish up, and now he’s supposed to be painted a hero? I’m supposed to buy his book? I don’t think so.
Overall, the book and media tour come off as a broad-stroke attack on the Bush administration by a guy who knowingly and directly contributed to the mass deception of the American public. Is he saying anything particularly groundbreaking or new? It doesn’t seem so. None of it does anything more than further confirm what’s already bound for the history books: this country has been stolen, swindled and deceived beyond anything our nation has ever seen. The Bush administration’s lies and complete hijacking of America make Nixon’s antics look like petty theft.
The real terrorists are sitting in the White House this very minute.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:06 PM
“massive, flag-draped bag of lies that enabled the hijacking of an entire nation during three of the most crucial years this generation has ever seen….The real terrorists are sitting in the White House this very minute.”
Grow up, douchebag. I had friends who died on 9/11. I assume you didn’t.