Former Bush Aide's Book Pisses Off Administration

[FSTargetDrone]

Last year there was discussion here about Scott "Lickspittle" McClellan and his forthcoming book that denounced the Bush Administration with respect to the CIA. Well, the book is out and the Administration is none too pleased:

McClellan memoir rankles White House

By Douglas Stanglin, USA TODAY

White House aides and former administration officials seemed stunned, puzzled and angry on Wednesday over the scathing tone of a memoir by former press secretary Scott McClellan.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad — this is not the Scott we knew."

Perino said the reports on the book, titled What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, had been described to President Bush, and that she did not expect him to comment.

"He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she said.

In the book, McClellan, who served as press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006, touches on a number of White House topics and personalities, including former Bush political strategist Karl Rove.

He writes that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war. "

Regarding Bush, he writes that the president "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment," and has engaged in "self-deception" to justify his political ends.

Rove, who was singled out for particularly strong criticism, said the book excerpts are "not the Scott McClellan I've known for a long time."

"It sounds like a left-winger blogger," he said on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes program.

Frances Fragos Townsend, a former Bush administration official, tells CNN that McClellan's claims are "self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional."

"People need to understand that as an adviser to the president, I or Scott have an obligation, a responsibility, to voice concerns on policy issues," she says. "Scott never did that on any of these issues, as best I can remember, and as best I know from my White House colleagues."

Ari Fleischer, McClellan's immediate predecessor as press secretary, told Fox News the book is "heartbreaking" and that he was confused by it.

"Well there's just something about it that doesn't make any sense, and I say that because Scott never once approached me publicly, privately, to express any misgivings," he said. "I would think if he harbored such deep feelings about things he wouldn't have and shouldn't have accepted the press secretary job in the first place."

Fleischer, however, said he likes McClellan personally and expressed some sympathy with McClellan's tenure in the White House.

"He got dealt a deck of cards that were very tough," he said. "He was the press secretary at a time when the war in Iraq started to go very badly, he had issues inside with staffers who deceived him."

In the book, McClellan accused Rove, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, of deliberately misleading him about their involvement in leak of a CIA operative's name.

He singled out what he described as a "suspicious" private meeting between Rove and Libby around the time that the story about their possible involvement in the matter was particularly hot.

"The confidential meeting also occurred at a moment when I was being battered by the press for publicly vouching for the two by claiming they were not involved in leaking (Valerie) Plame's identity, when recently revealed information was now indicating otherwise. … I don't know what they discussed, but what would any knowledgeable person reasonably and logically conclude was the topic? Like the whole truth of people's involvement, we will likely never know with any degree of confidence."

Libby was later convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the CIA leak case.

McClellan, whose ties to Bush go back to their days in Texas, also strongly criticizes the administration's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and writes that the White House "spent most of the first week in a state of denial."

McClellan blames Rove for engineering a photo-op that shows Bush looking out the window of Air Force One at a devastated New Orleans as the plane flew back to Washington from Texas.

McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped, but that he later was told that "Karl was convinced we needed to do it — and the president agreed."

In response to the book, Rove said on Fox's Hannity and Colmes show that McClellan was wrong to suggest that a meeting between he and Libby was a rare occurrence. He said the two often discussed policy issues, or speeches or the vice president's schedule. He also denied any improper discussions with Libby involving the CIA leak case

"Both of our attorneys told us not to talk to anybody else in the White House about anything connected with that (case,) so we didn't," Rove said.

Regarding the New Orleans flyover, Rove said the White House faced a "horrible, horrible choice" to either land Air Force One and divert resources from the immediate rescue efforts or to fly to the north of the city and appear to be turning a blind-eye to the tragedy.

"If we landed, we'd have diverted valuable resources from the immediate effort to save people's lives and that was simply not unacceptable to the president," Rove said.

Rove, who described McClellan as "out of loop" on many White House matters, said the former press secretary did not speak up at the time if he had felt strongly about some issues, particularly the war.

"If he had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them," Rove said. "And I don't remember him speaking up about them."

Contributing: Associated Press

[SirNitram]

Nice to mention all this when something could be done to avert senseless loss of life, dickhead.

[Coyote]

I don't know, it's not like the Bush Administration treated dissenters with any sense of respect. Colin Powell basically had the option to either dance to the tune or walk. He tried dancing to the tune but couldn't keep it up, and he got drummed out. It doesn't surprise me that the Bush Admin's operating philosophy was 'my way or the highway'.

[Big Phil]

EXTRA!!! EXTRA!!! BUSH IS A NARCISSIST WHO IS SURROUND BY YES-MEN!!! NEWS AT 11:00!!!

This is no surprise to anyone who doesn't believe Faux Noise is actually fair and balanced, but it's still nice to see Republicans eating their own.

[cosmicalstorm]

He's obviously trying his best to distance himself from Bush to save his career and sell his new book. I would expect this to become more common as the end of the Bush era comes closer.

[Surlethe]

Seems like McClellan's pretty passive-aggressive. But at the same time, in the Bush Administration, only passive-aggressiveness is rewarded: if you voice disagreement with Bush, you're kicked out.

[Big Phil]

Here are the signs and symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (from The Mayo Clinic). Do any of these sound like Commander in Chimp?

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:

* Believing that you're better than others
* Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
* Exaggerating your achievements or talents
* Expecting constant praise and admiration
* Believing that you're special
* Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
* Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
* Taking advantage of others
* Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
* Being jealous of others
* Believing that others are jealous of you
* Trouble keeping healthy relationships
* Setting unrealistic goals
* Being easily hurt and rejected
* Having a fragile self-esteem
* Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

Although some features of narcissistic personality disorder may seem like having confidence or strong self-esteem, it's not the same. Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence and self-esteem into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal. In contrast, people who have healthy confidence and self-esteem don't value themselves more than they value others.

When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don't receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry. You may also seek out others you think have the same special talents, power and qualities — people you see as equals. You may insist on having "the best" of everything — the best car, athletic club, medical care or social circles, for instance.

But underneath all this grandiosity often lies a very fragile self-esteem. You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better.

[Darth Raptor]

Nice to mention all this when something could be done to avert senseless loss of life, dickhead.

McClellan claims he believed everything he was told until around two years after the fact when the news media finally emerged as an independent institution. He also maintains that Bush himself was deceived by his own advisors and honestly believed what he was told.

His agenda beyond "sell books" is unknown, but it's unlikely self-exoneration simply because it's not very self-exonerating. Still, his implication of Rove, Cheney and Libby is interesting.

[CmdrWilkens]

Nice to mention all this when something could be done to avert senseless loss of life, dickhead.

McClellan claims he believed everything he was told until around two years after the fact when the news media finally emerged as an independent institution. He also maintains that Bush himself was deceived by his own advisors and honestly believed what he was told.

His agenda beyond "sell books" is unknown, but it's unlikely self-exoneration simply because it's not very self-exonerating. Still, his implication of Rove, Cheney and Libby is interesting.

There was some analysis on the local news station (WTOP for those of you in the area) and I tend to agree with a couple things they said but the relevant part was that there is nothing at all wrong with reflecting back on something you have done and realizing it was wrong. Now the book doesn't actully get released for a few days so its hard to say now but I will, for the time being, give McClellan the benefit of the doubt that this is more about looking back and saying "I was drinking the Kool-Aid but after a few years off the sauce I finally realized what douches we were."

The other bit of analysis that I believe was spot on is that if you already knew that Bush was a lying, scheming, constitution destroying meglomaniacl jackass then this book won't change anything. If you thought invading Iraq was the greatest thing we've done since lexington and concord then you probably are going to say mcClellan is a lying dick trying to pander to the liberal media.

[Lonestar]

I don't know, it's not like the Bush Administration treated dissenters with any sense of respect.

No kidding. Rumsfeld fired the Secretary of the Army because he refused to fire CSA Shinseki.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think it's rather amusing how all these people in the Administration come across as personally offended at what McClellan writes about, his telling of what went on (as he saw it). I don't doubt for a second that any of those clowns would turn on the other in some hypothetical legal proceeding. What do they expect. Loyalty? McClellan was made a fool of when he stood up there and (as he claims) unknowingly spoke lies for Bush.

It's not like this guy is even family to the rest of them. Loyalty? Ha.

[MKSheppard]

No kidding. Rumsfeld fired the Secretary of the Army because he refused to fire CSA Shinseki.

GOOD. Damn it, that moron Shinseki gave us the fucking Stryker, FCS, lighter is better bullshit, and the damn beret. He should have been axed in 2000.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh please, Shep, your wonderful military-industrial complex and virtuous Republican Administration just continues to pour money and time into the same project with or without Shineski. They wanted to fire him for daring to say the obvious and that Iraq wouldn't be a six week ( ) honeymoon with 150,000 troops.

[Lonestar]

GOOD. Damn it, that moron Shinseki gave us the fucking Stryker, FCS, lighter is better bullshit, and the damn beret. He should have been axed in 2000.

Of all the things Shinseki could have been fired for, "Answering a direct question from Congress as honestly as possible" was not one of them. Which is what Rumsfeld wanted to fire him for. When Secretary White refused to fire Shinseki for that, he got fired(as in "that day" fired, not "put in your resignation to take effect in two weeks").

The Bush Administration did not create an environment conducive to dissenting views.

[Darth Wong]

Here are the signs and symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (from The Mayo Clinic). Do any of these sound like Commander in Chimp?

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:

* Believing that you're better than others
* Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
* Exaggerating your achievements or talents
* Expecting constant praise and admiration
* Believing that you're special
* Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
* Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
* Taking advantage of others
* Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
* Being jealous of others
* Believing that others are jealous of you
* Trouble keeping healthy relationships
* Setting unrealistic goals
* Being easily hurt and rejected
* Having a fragile self-esteem
* Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

I don't know if we know Bush well enough to know how well he meets these criteria, except for the bit about reacting really badly to criticism and expecting constant praise. We've seen that many times, in the way he treats dissent and criticism as disloyalty and attempts to attack it that way. But for that matter, the entire right-wing political movement acts like that.

[The Yosemite Bear]

ok, lots more lies.

and no concious at all.

[Vympel]

"Complicit enablers" is the word Scotty here used to describe the media, apparently.

This is just the clearest indictment yet of how corrupt the American media has become - when you have a former White House press secretary for the most radical right wing bunch of fucktards put in office in recent history call the media too deferential to the executive branch, it really says it all.

But nothing will change - in the aftermath of all this, you've got fucktard journalists saying they're not sure they would've done everything different if they had another go. Government talks, we type. We're just a big gaping vagina shaped dictaphone, right?

G Greenwald notes how the media is (largely) ignoring Scotty's criticism of them and focusing just on the criticism of Bush -

And just watch how McClellan's mockery of the "deferential" press -- piercing and humiliating as it is -- will be ignored by media coverage of his book, consigned to the same dustbin where the "military analyst" story is kept. Already today, The New York Times and The Washington Post both trumpet the fact that McClellan made statements harshly critical of Bush. But they completely ignore McClellan's far more significant indictment of their "deferential," Bush-enabling conduct. Isn't it rather self-evidently newsworthy that Bush's own press secretary blamed the American media for allowing Bush to get away with all sorts of falsehoods because of how "deferential" they are?

Press secretaries of all types instinctively view the media as adversaries and typically feel besieged by what they perceive to be the media's unfair hostility. So if even Scott McClellan recognizes the mythical nature of the "liberal media" cliche and sees political journalists as meek little handmaidens for government propaganda, how much longer can this myth be maintained?

More:

I think the questions were asked. I respectfully disagree with the gentle lady from the Columbia Broadcasting System [group giggles]. I think the questions were asked. . . . I can remember getting in trouble with administration officials for asking questions they didn't feel comfortable with.

It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. And it is not our job to debate them; it's our job to ask the questions.

[the moronic Charlie Gibson on the Today Show in the aftermath]

Indeed. Perish the thought that journalists should be adversarial to our political officials, challenge what they say or point out when they're lying. Instead, their job is merely to pose polite questions, let political officials say what they want in response, and then go home -- just as Charlie Gibson said. This is why most establishment journalists will never be convinced that they failed to do their job, no matter how much evidence is presented: because of the understanding they have of what "their job" actually is

G Greenwald again does a simply superb job of digging up these liars - Go here for what this Gibson fool said about Powell's laughable speech in the UN back in 2003, as opposed to his lies about it now (he claimed the media was very skeptical, which is just a flat out lie, they all collectively came in their pants while everyone outside the US called bullshit).

[The Yosemite Bear]

Reminds me of statements from the Baltimore Sun, about their firing of someone whose now a TV producer, and a best selling author. Especially after ther person he had conflicts with was later revealed to be a liar and a plaugerist.

[Patrick Degan]

The impression I'm getting so far from McClellan's book is his pushing the line that Chimpus Caesar was just a well-meaning dupe who got fooled like the rest of us into going into Iraq. That doesn't wash, though, given how hot-shit eager he was to put the 9/11 tragedy on Saddam Hussein, how he kept repeating the same myths about Iraq's Vast Phantom WMD Arsenal™ even after each one had been exploded, and how diplomacy was used simply as a cover for a decision to go to war he had already made back in 2000 if not earlier.

Seems the object of the exercise is to exhonerate the Moron-in-Chief while putting the blame on everybody else for his fuckups.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yes, unlike truman where the buck stopped at the oval office, Bush and Cheney have declared the executive desk a no-fly zone, they can't be responsible for their own actions.

[Darth Wong]

I'm so sick of seeing people get away with saying that you need "20/20 hindsight" to see what was wrong with the US case for war in 2003. How the fuck did the rest of the world see it, then? The US created a psychological bubble around itself in 2003, in much the same way that a fundamentalist church congregation does. They send information (or misinformation) to the outside world, but they do not permit any foreign information to come back.

All the American right-wing media is parroting this ridiculous "We did the best we could with the information we had" line. How was the rest of the world able to do better, then?

[Crossroads Inc.]

All the American right-wing media is parroting this ridiculous "We did the best we could with the information we had" line. How was the rest of the world able to do better, then?

Don't forget, according to most Rigth Wing Drum beaters... "The rest of the world" 'knew' saddam had weapons as well... I see this repeated ENDLESSLY here, the line

"Well we got it wrong.. but the whole world got it wrong! the whole world Thought Saddam had WMD's!" Most Americans have swallowed this, as people who are against the Iraq war have told me "Well, everyone else thought they had WMD's too"

[Darth Wong]

All the American right-wing media is parroting this ridiculous "We did the best we could with the information we had" line. How was the rest of the world able to do better, then?

Don't forget, according to most Rigth Wing Drum beaters... "The rest of the world" 'knew' saddam had weapons as well... I see this repeated ENDLESSLY here, the line

"Well we got it wrong.. but the whole world got it wrong! the whole world Thought Saddam had WMD's!" Most Americans have swallowed this, as people who are against the Iraq war have told me "Well, everyone else thought they had WMD's too"

That's a classic bait and switch. The rest of the world agreed that he probably still had some of the old chemical weapons from the Iran-Iraq war, which was confirmed true after the war. However, very few of them believed in the nuclear research trucks, the 45-minute strike capability, or Saddam's ability to pose a threat to the entire region. They're lumping together the relevant and irrelevant claims under the "WMD" umbrella in order to pretend that there was broad agreement on the relevant claims, when in fact there was not.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Which echos perfectly with the way most rightwing yahoos think... The moment you admit the rest of the world "assumed" Saddam had some form of weapon material, they seem to think it invalidates any and all arguments you may make...

The fact that maybe, just maybe we arn't mindless sheep who are supposed to think "what the rest of the world" think seems to escape them

[CmdrWilkens]

I'm so sick of seeing people get away with saying that you need "20/20 hindsight" to see what was wrong with the US case for war in 2003. How the fuck did the rest of the world see it, then? The US created a psychological bubble around itself in 2003, in much the same way that a fundamentalist church congregation does. They send information (or misinformation) to the outside world, but they do not permit any foreign information to come back.

All the American right-wing media is parroting this ridiculous "We did the best we could with the information we had" line. How was the rest of the world able to do better, then?

Even for the centrist media its simply a matter that they dont' want to admit they were wrong. Its just like with the NYT piece about the Pentagon propaganda machine, actually covering the story would mean admitting to the fact that they didn't do their own damn job. Until some major members of the press at large are finally willing to face up to their own humiliatingly blind parroting of the administration we will never move past the "hindsight" narrative. The problem is these are a bunch of rich self important jackasses and admiting error for them is close to impossible so I'm not holding my breath.