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[catman]

FULL ARTICLE

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush �veered terribly off course,� was not �open and forthright on Iraq,� and took a �permanent campaign approach� to governing at the expense of candor and competence.

Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled �What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington�s Culture of Deception� (Public Affairs, $27.95):

� McClellan charges that Bush relied on �propaganda� to sell the war.

� He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

� He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be �badly misguided.�

� The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them � and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

� McClellan asserts that the aides � Karl Rove, the president�s senior adviser, and I. Lewis �Scooter� Libby, the vice president�s chief of staff � �had at best misled� him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame�s identity.

� Bush was �clearly irritated, � steamed,� when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: ��It�s unacceptable,� Bush continued, his voice rising. �He shouldn�t be talking about that.��

� �As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided.�

� �History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.�

� McClellan describes his preparation for briefing reporters during the Plame frenzy: �I could feel the adrenaline flowing as I gave the go-ahead for Josh Deckard, one of my hard-working, underpaid press office staff, � to give the two-minute warning so the networks could prepare to switch to live coverage the moment I stepped into the briefing room.�

[Gopher]

Receiving much attn at CNN...

[desultude]

I guess the payback for hanging with dishonorable, untrustworthy people is having them be disloyal to you, in the end.

The memoirs coming out of this administration should at least be entertaining.

They may end up looking like a bunch of jackels fighting over the dead carcass of this administration- all trying to find one last way to cash in.

Of course, he didn't say anything we didn't already know.

[Gopher]

NPR Discussion on "White House Memoirs"

[bacasper]

It is nice to see validation of what many of us have said since the beginning.

Such disclosures come out regularly. It is incredible that so many people continue to accept the usual drivel that comes out of an administration at face value.

[Gopher]

MSNBC Poll

[bookemdanno]

catman:

Meow.

Of course he "whacks" Bush because Scotty's a "whack-job."

If you want to actually get at the root of the problem and entertain another angle on this manufactured crisis, see Ari Fleischer's interview with Good Morning, America. In addition to very professional questioning from the interviewer/host, you'll get the take of McClellan's immediate boss at the White House when he first came on board.

Talk about your opportunistic publishing moves and nursing a grudge.

All the liberal press is desperately seeking explosive adjectives like "bashing" to describe what McClellan supposedly says about Bush. I wouldn't characterize it that way. He is critical at times but far more critical of the cronies: Libby, Rove, and Cheney.

[Nowhere Man]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[agentX]

I'm not buying his 'conversion' but if he wants to clear the air about his role in the debacles of the Bush Admin, then more power to him.

His disclosures clearly point the finger for the Plame affair at the admin's 3 stooges; Cheney, Rove, and Libby. It seems a LOT of crap comes from the VP office these days. Rove was once called "Bush's Brain" so the number brain farts the president has made lately confirms that.

He also said that the president was running the White House as though it was in permanent campaign mode. That's important to note because instead of running the country, the White House was too busy focused on making Bush look good.

They sent his ass out there on the line to fry and never told him what they were really doing. Maybe they thought he had integrity so he was kept out of the loop. Perhaps Cheney was right; he did have integrity all along, or at least enough to know where and whom to point the finger at.

Rove's in so much hot water right now that it won't surprise me if Rep. Conyers isn't planning on grilling Rove on the revelations with a copy of this book on the bench, after he grills him about the Gov. Sigelmann railroading.

[mindmetoo]

[VanIslander]

bitter is loyalty betrayed

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is an interesting development. His observations will be useful to historians when they write their assessments of this administration. An insider's view will have to be taken into account.

The big question of course is why did he do it this way and now. That can be a fun game to play. My guess is that he's only 40 and a member of a 'political family' in Texas. He must have political ambitions and feels the need to distance himself from the deeds of a deeply unpopular administration. His calculation must be that he needs to burn the bridges to that wing of the party that still supports Bush.

At least he's not pandering to Bush like McCain is doing.

[Gopher]

[Gopher]