Hmm, with a 70% dissapproval rating, that's a lot of potential customers for this book, wouldn't you think? Just another fracking hypocritical oppertunist. I won't be picking up this unadultered trash if someone paid me to read it.

PS Sorry... I've recently become addicted to Battlestar Galactica, and have been churning through the DVDs at a feverish pace ;)

This was the story de jour yesterday on Faux News (it's times like this that I am actually entertained by Fox). They were working their damnedest to make Scott look as insignificant as possible. Over and over those Fox guys were shrugging hard and going "I just don't know why anyone would find him credible" (!) like a freshly dumped high school boyfriend. Oh how I laughed. Then this morning I hear Condi on the radio saying that "no one" was saying this stuff at the time and "he should have brought it up then if he had these concerns", apparently forgetting that her White House worked overtime to silence opposition everywhere. These people make me sick.

This morning I heard him on NPR and he's still a little weasel liar. I actually found myself shouting at the radio (like I was a Fox News demographic come to life) when he tried to get all coy and talk about how the real problem with how they handled the Iraq War was selling it like a product because they got caught up in all the partisanship.

"I don't think it was intentional or deliberate. What happened here was we got caught up in the very thing the president campaigned against when he was first running for president back in 2000 — the destructive, partisan tone in Washington."

Yeah, Scotty, that was the real problem.

"It's not a deliberate effort on the president's part or many of his advisers to go out there and be misleading or engage in spin. It's just the way the game's become played in Washington, and we embraced it too often."

Riiiiiighht.

Speaking of dirty tricks, you might also notice that in Canada, NAFTA-gate is being pinned on Stockwell Day and some prominent Repulican dirty tricks experts, specifically, Frank Sensenbrenner, the son of Wisconsin Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner - the American embassy in Ottawa.

See James Travers article http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/431367 for details.

Adam

Powell, Rumsfeld,
If you are thinking of coming clean and writing a book - don't listen to these guys. Go ahead and do it. Late is better than never, even if only a little bit. We need more Deans and fewer Liddys or Norths.

No revelations (maybe), but his book says that Rove and Libby met to 'discuss' the case against Libby (and possibly a legal case against Rove growing out of his grand jury testimony (lies!). He confirms a potential conspiracy to commit perjury in the investigation and trial(s) (on both parties part).

Of course, you are spot on what a disgusting human being he was and is. That he lied so often in public probably makes any potential court testimony on these matters subject to challenge (and probably by his own defense counsel!) [Oh, he's just a serial liar, so what he said in the book is just another lie].

I disagree. You guys were going to continue to hate him no matter what he said. If he had continued to be silent, you’d have hated him. Now that he has publicly impugned the President, you still hate him.

By speaking out, he has created a huge new set of extremely bitter and powerful enemies on the right. That took some guts.

My guess is that Scott McClellan is simply a weak person -- a follower who was in over his head. When he was in the White House, he went along with whatever the stronger people around him believed. And if he had doubts, he was too timid to say anything. Then after he left the White House, and Bush's popularity tanked, he started to believe what the a lot of the strong voices outside the White House said. So he re-evaluated his past experiences in that light. And he started to feel guilty.

But really, who cares about Scott McClellan as a person? What matters is whether the things he says in his book are true. And there is ample reason to believe they are. I really hope the media focuses on THAT, instead of exploring McClellan's psyche or his former colleagues' "puzzlement" over his change of heart. Maybe we can even focus on the media's role in enabling this war, as Jessica Yellin began to do on CNN last night.

McClellan and his book are almost completely uninteresting. What is noteworthy and disturbing is how the press is treating it as a revelation that the Iraq war wasn't undertaken to get rid of WMDs and that there might have been some lying involved in selling it. Where have they been the last 5 years? (I'm looking at you, David Gregory.)

Isn't the definition of a Presidential Press Secretary in this White House to just be a mindless mouthpiece for whatever lying drivel they want to throw at the public? Doesn't seem like the kind of position where someone is supposed to question what they are told to say. So perhaps I don't fault him as much as the people who were actually making the decisions and feeding him the lies. The more insiders who admit to the dishonesty, the harder it will be for the rest to maintain the facade.

That was a great link, Adam. Thanks.

Yes his new found gosepl of truth is just as disengenuous as Bushs convenient discovery of faith.

Did anyone really think he was telling the trush at the time?

I think it is heartening that Bush's tight circle of co-consiprators is unraveling. Hopefully there's some tidbit like the Rove meetings in this book that can help direct any upcoming investigations. .although Im certain its been combed through by administration lawyers fairly thouroughly.

Snotty Scottie, the smooth-faced, jelly-jowled, lying, little, fascist factotum and Bushevik "butt-boy" since Texas, now tries to pretend he's got a spine?

feh

Bush is not on the ticket.

Just thought I'd remind all of you...

I heard Scott in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR yesterday describe how he felt his future career prospects and his integrity lessened with each lie he was telling. I think he's been out of the Administration long enough to realize he can't get a real day job now and needs to pay the bills so, voila! Write a not-really-tell-all book when it's safe to do so and try and earn enough cash until the Republicans are back in power.

Oh, oh, I know. Maybe Tony Snow will come out with a book now detailing how he didn't really know anything before becoming Press Secretary and still doesn't.

"Bush is not on the ticket."

No, but his war policy is.

This is whackadoodle. Sure, you'll never like Scottie. Neither will I. But as said above, who cares about Scottie--if he's redeemed or damned, if he sells books or goes broke? What matters is if these allegations are true.

It's flatly bizarre that members of the press are responding with "wow, he really lied to us when he was press secretary." Any number of them KNEW his statements on leaks re: Plame were false, because they the ones were being leaked to! Jeez, I'd lie to you, too, if it were obvious I could get away with it!

Likewise, it's demented that they are responding to his criticism that they weren't tough enough in their war coverage with "well, he just fed us talking points when he was press secretary, he didn't tell us any of this stuff, what were we supposed to do?" It's his freaking JOB to spin you! If that's interfering with your ability to do journalism, the answer is not to throw up your hans and do stenography. It's to find a new model of journalism--do what McClatchy did, and call guys further down the chain to see if this passes the smell test! But expecting the minister of propaganda to help you cut through the propaganda..it's insane. Totally insane.

The fact that reporters still defend their work n the runup to war, or feel like they couldn't have done anything differently is a HUGE problem, and Scottie is giving this nation an opportunity to address it by coming clean on what he did in the White House.

I think we as a nation should stop focusing on psychobabble speculations about the character of a thirs-rate political appointee and ask ourselves why exactly the press doesn't understand how thoroughly he played them and why that is bad for America.

I don't care what he knew, when he knew it, how unethically he might have acted, or how much of a weasal he might be. The point to me, and the one that we shouldn't miss is that he's coming cleaning and exposing the fact that it's not just liberals and "the left wing" in the US who know (and knew) how poorly managed our country was (and is) and how far in the wrong direction we've gone, but conservatives--and those on the inside--know it too! Try as they might, the neocons cannot dismiss McClellan and his criticism the way they can liberals or even people like Richard Clarke who left early.

Certainly, this does not absolve McClellan's chronic ethical lapse in the least, but it does provide a very powerful critique not only of the Bush White House, but of the neoconservative banner being carried forward by McCain, as well as the majority of the Republican Party. And I think it's important to consider it this way before we jump all over him: had McClellan followed what he knew to be right at the time, resigned and openly criticized the White House and neocon policies, he would have been easily dismissed by them as uniformed and disgruntled who was never that close to them anyway, just like Richard Clarke was--like it or not--successfully maligned by the majority of the public and media.

The fact that McClellan was close to Bush, was a long-serving member of his staff, and the fact that he admits (to some degree) his own wrong-doing as a complicit enabler makes him impossible to dismiss and ignore. Ironically, without this enabling, his criticism probably would have been unconstructive and gone ignored. The goals and policies of the Bush administration probably would have gone forward without his participation, and his later criticism would have been minor and as an outsider by comparison. I'm not arguing that McClellan had heroic or honorable reasons for acting unethically, but I do think we should appreciate his late atonement, and at the very least the incredible weight he has a critic precisely because of his intimate involvement in that which he is criticizing.

"Bush is not on the ticket.
Just thought I'd remind all of you..."

Sorry, Viaj, we're puttin' him on there whether you like it or not.

That 70 percent should tell you that McClellan is coming to the ball when everyone else has already moved on to the next party. It's a little like he's telling us that the earth rotates around the sun.

yeah, and keep telling yourself that you are going to get away from bush by saying he's not on the ticket for the next several months. the problem with that is the more your protest, the more people are reminded of why you don't want McCain associated with bush. Either way, you are going to lose.

The confessions of criminals still have value, even absent true repentance.

Don't Buy Books From Crooks

The library is your friend...

I usually love your commentary, Ezra, so no offense intended, but I think you're dead wrong on this one. Yes, of course Scott McClellan is an opportunist and a tool. But he makes some really serious allegations in this book and in the interviews he's doing now - most notably that Bush PERSONALLY approved the Plame leak (it's on the Huffington Post right now) - and if these allegations are true, I just don't see how we can avoid talking about impeachment. That is, unless the media collectively decides to cover their asses by asserting that since this story "doesn't really surprise them" that it's not really "news" and that they can safely ignore it.

That is to say, if all of the "mavens" in Washington (and I count you among them) continue to cover this story with a "eh, we've heard it all before, blah blah, the President lied to us, we know all this already!" attitude, then political momentum for impeachment (or at least investigating McClellan's claims, for God's sake) will NEVER reach a tipping point among the electorate. If those of us on the left are going to start in with the "I told you so"s and the "where were you when I needed you"s instead of trying to disseminate this damning information to as many Americans as possible, if for no other reason than that it is never allowed to happen again, then we're doing the same lapdoggy don't-rock-the-boat preach-to-the-choir journalism that we accused the networks of doing in the first place.

I mean, this is a really huge admission coming from inside the White House - real whistleblower stuff, McClellan could conceivably be the new Dean or Ziegler - and if the media keeps treating it like old news, before you know it, it WILL be old news. And if peronally approving the Plame leak isn't enough to get Bush impeached, I don't know what will be. Maybe a blowjob? Would that be "news" because it would surprise you jaded Washington types enough?

So, after fellating the White House for years, Scotty tells us he didn't like the taste.

Whadda guy.

I've spent a lot of the last few years wondering why more Bush people didn't burst out with the truth in shame and frustration; why people preferred to lie in front of audiences who laughed in their faces, destroying their hopes of careers in private service for ever and ever.

This is why. When they do, we lash out at them as though they were still our enemies.

It's something to consider.

I think he's been out of the Administration long enough to realize he can't get a real day job now and needs to pay the bills so, voila!

The wingnut welfare roll is going to shrink quite a bit over the coming months. Having the current recipients of bullshit bursaries fight it out between themselves is going to be popcorn-worthy.

Impeachment - It's not just for blowjobs anymore.

I so disagree. McClellan was a true believer who, over a period of time became dis-enthralled. I'm guessing the experience is much like a failing marriage. Bush's failings weren't revealed in a flash, they happened over a period of time, and altho the aggregate finally achieved the tipping point for Scot, Bush & Co. weren't 100% bad, so it took time to come to grips with reversing his feelings. Just like a failing marriage stretching out for several years.

This is a powederkeg story. And timely. And will definitely help the Democrats in 2008. And angry conservatives are reading this book. And puts McCain on the defensive to defend the war. And forces the right wing spin mmachine to go overboard on McClellan, who's now a left-wing radical!

Ezra, look at the big picture here. Anything that makes the AM/Fox conservative heads collectively explode is all good.