The Mope Gets A Backbone

I had honestly hoped that when Ari Fleischer left his post as press secretary, he'd be the one to write the explosive tell all book but he didn't. Who decides to spill the beans but the man who seemed least comfortable in the job. I found it positively excruciating to watch Scott McClellan in those press briefings. He didn't even come off as a good liar. He never seemed quite prepared and the press seemed to swarm around him like sharks who smelled blood as they treated him with disdain. I'm not sure where I thought he went after they replaced him with the Fox News, slick and savvy Tony Snow but the mopiest press secretary ever has the White House shocked and appalled!

Mr. McClellan’s book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” is the first negative account by a member of the tight circle of Texans around Mr. Bush. Mr. McClellan, 40, went to work for Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas and was the White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006.

The revelations in the book, to be published by PublicAffairs next Monday, were first reported Tuesday on Politico.com by Mike Allen. Mr. Allen wrote that he bought the book at a Washington store. The New York Times also obtained an advance copy.

Mr. McClellan writes that top White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. He says he did not know for almost two years that his statements from the press room that Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr. were not involved in the leak were a lie.

“Neither, I believe, did President Bush,” Mr. McClellan writes. “He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth — including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”

He is harsh about the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, saying it “spent most of the first week in a state of denial” and “allowed our institutional response to go on autopilot.” Mr. McClellan blames Mr. Rove for one of the more damaging images after the hurricane: Mr. Bush’s flyover of the devastation of New Orleans. When Mr. Rove brought up the idea, Mr. McClellan writes, he and Dan Bartlett, a top communications adviser, told Mr. Bush it was a bad idea because he would appear detached and out of touch. But Mr. Rove won out, Mr. McClellan writes.

A theme in the book is that the White House suffered from a “permanent campaign” mentality, and that policy decisions were inextricably interwoven with politics.

If find it funny that the White House's response has been one of shock and disbelief that Scotty would write a book like this. They feel someone else must have written it for him ... that this is not the person they knew. They are surprised that the man who they hired because he was a mope didn't express concerns while in the job. They are surprised that the man that they hired to be a mule for false information stopped acting so mopey.

I know this is one big, fantastic comedy because I found myself agreeing with Tucker Carlson the other day. He basically said that the Bush administration got what it deserved for hiring someone because of their loyalty instead of their qualifications. I guess Scott's loyalty only went so far and his conscience got the best of him.