The Redhunter

Bush has had four Press Secretaries and McClellan was the worst of the bunch by far.

Tony Snow was brilliant and Ari Fleischer was good too. Dana Perino is OK.

But McClellan was weak and ineffective, not at all the kind of person who should have been in that job and he was only there because he had a long time connection to President Bush (which we can now assume is at an end).

There's also a lot of sour grapes with McClellan because he was basically fired so Tony Snow could take the job.

So, he writes this book and the only way it's going to sell is if he sells out his relationship with Bush in a very unseemly and obvious way.

Karl Rove was talking about the book and said that what he was reading didn't sound like Scott at all. I wonder if there was a ghost writer?

Ditto Mike's comments!!!

I adored both Tony Snow and Ari Fleischer and Dana does ok but Scott was horrible and now he has the audacity to come out with this book. I hope he enjoys his 5 minutes of fame because no conservative organization is going to want to touch him after this. I guess he's hoping he can get a job with the media like Stephanophoulos did after he criticized the Clintons.

It appears now that the fine "Italian" hand of Soros is involved - plus McClellan's mother apparently lost an election in Texas to a Bush administration member. Check out American Thinker for articles - though I think it's had enough coverage that there are articles appearing about it in lots of places. If what I've seen is true, McClellan has just proved his own incompetency.

Sorry ladies and gentlemen but from what I have heard about McClellan's book, it merely constitutes more evidence of what I, and many like me, thought all along.

First, the hue and cry about "McClellan should have spoken up or McClellan should have quit" is just silly. The guy was the president's spokesman. He did not make policy. His job was to present it to the public. Certainly he is accurate when he describes the White House as a bubble. George Bush's White House is no different in that regard except as to degree.

Whether Scott McClelllan is a weasel or whistle blower is of little importance. The issue is: "Why did we invade Iraq?"

Anyone performing a dispassionate analysis of that question b/f the the invasion could have and no doubt did predict that what would happen is what has happened. So the next question is: "On the whole are our interests, as a nation, best served by committing our resources to regime change and the institution of democracy in Iraq."

Of course as anyone familiar w/ the history and culture of Iraq--a country created by France and GB at the end of WW I--could have advised, attempting to install democracy in Iraq is a process that would necessarily require a cultural transformation and therefore was and is a fool's errand.

So why did we invade Iraq?. Clearly, the minute this administration assumed power, it began planning the invasion. I for one, do not believe that such planning was a prudent contingency but instead was a policy that the administration intended to effect from the outset.

I cannot say that I have resolved this question absolutely for myself. I never thought that George W. Bush was varsity material. Politically, he was a creation of Karl Rove, and had Bill Clinton kept his pants on, I doubt that George W. Bush would have won the 2000 election.

In my more cynical, or perhaps realistic, moments, I think that the invasion of Iraq was a policy that was hatched to insure an election victory in 2004. It was hatched b/f 9/11 which was an unforeseen event in which aftermath--the rallying of the country and the necessary invasion of Afghanistan--assured the reelection of Bush in 2004.

Unfortunately, the administration continued w/ its plan to invade Iraq and here we are.

Did the administration cook the books on the WMD threat? Almost certainly. This does not absolve the Congress of its all too willing grant of power to the president but anyone who does not think that the adminstration atttempted to manipulate public opinion is delusional. Go back and listen to George W. Bush's speeches in which he attempted to link al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

That said, neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney committed acts of treason or any lesser impeachable offense. They are merely guilty of being self serving and of drinking their own bath water and proclaiming it to be vintage champagne.

Regrettably, this process has cost the lives of our service men and women; has had the unintended consequence of empowering Iran, a much more sinister country than Iraq whose promulgation of "revolution' in the Middle East is inimical to our interests and those of our allies; and has mired us in a situation which even if it is not intractable, as I beleive it is, will require years to resolve w/ disporportionate cost to this country w/ respect to any benefit we have or will realize.

So if Scott McClellan deserves to be castigated, it is as TRH observed, b/c he sold out his relationship w/ George W. Bush in an unseemly way.

Regards,

The Loop Garoo Kid

The book may have some effect on the November election, though. That's assuming that anyone reads it, of course.

Tom, I agree that Scott and his self-promoting book is either too late (if he really thinks of himself as a 'whistle-blower'), or suspect after he spent years lying through his teeth to the public and now wants to come clean. Moveon.org had a good challenge for Scott: donate all the money from the book to veterans.

I thought Paul O'Niell's book, "The Price of Loyalty", was much better. He was forced to resign, and wrote a book detailed the lack of internal debate within the administration. The way that he described the scripted nature of the internal debates was disturbing to me. Regardless of my views on the policies, I would have at least liked to know they honestly weighted the options before jumping to forgone conclusions.

From what I here about McClellan's book, it really doesn't tell us much we haven't already heard, just his chance to tell his perspective (which hardly seems newsworthy to me.)