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Speaking of McClellan.....

I’m puzzled over the interest in Scott McClellan’s opportunistic , backstabber-for-sale book. Why would any reasonable person place any credence in the veracity of anything he says? McClellan was only a deputy press secretary to Ari Fleischer during the lead up and beginning months of the Iraq war. The war started in March 2003 but Fleischer didn’t resign until July of that year. IMHO, it seems unlikely that a press secretary would have appropriate security clearance to be a party to high level, war planning discussions and certainly an underling , deputy secretary would not. Still, McClellan says he dutifully passed along the White House talking points at every press briefing. During his three years as press secretary the only times he ever seemed the least bit uncomfortable with his participation in the “Big Mislead” or any other aspect of his job was when he had to respond to questions from the hideous Helen Thomas. He exhibited the same demeanor throughout his time at the podium. Now he says it was all so wrong . What does that mean really? When do we take him at his word? Was he lying then or now? Is he asking us to believe that he is/was a man of integrity pre and post White House but that he conveniently misplaced it for three years so he could go before the MSM and the public daily, look everyone in the eye and lie? His former colleagues at the White House say he never once expressed his concerns that the public was being mislead about anything to any of them. What does that say about him?

His claims seem silly, petty and border on paranoia such as his assertion that Karl Rover and Scooter Libby had a secret strategy meeting about the Plame/CIA leak. FOFLOL A leak that everyone now knows didn’t come from the White House but from the adored Colin Powell and his gossip-loving, boot polisher, Richard Armitage. (Powell and Armitage sat on that information for months on end and let the White House take the heat for something they themselves did.) How on earth could McClellan know what was discussed in a private meeting between two high profile White House staffers or even how frequently they met? He wasn‘t in the room and it is absurd speculation on his part to presume he knows the nature of their discussion .

One can’t help but wonder exactly when and how it was that McClellan came to see the light. Was it before or after he was fired? Perhaps it was when the GOP chose to support popular Texas Governor Rick Perry’s re-election bid instead of McClellan’s mother, Carole Strayhorn, a former Texas state comptroller who ran as an “independent” Republican candidate against the incumbent Perry. Or was it money that spurred his decision to write a scurrilous book about a man who treated him kindly. A man who on McClellan’s last day on the job stood on the White House lawn with him and spoke with affection about their time together. If McClellan’s Johnny-come-lately-to-the-truth conversion is a sincere effort to set the record straight, to right his personal failings, then he ought to donate all the money he makes to some anti-war group. After all, profiting from his deliberate and calculated deceptions would be just as wrong as the behavior he now says he deplores.

Since McClellan is suddenly so fond of the truth, here is a little something for him to ponder. He is at best a prostitute. If he truly believed these things to be wrong at the time, he had an obligation then and there to try to stop it, failing that he should have resigned and informed the public and congress. But, he did not do any of that. Oh, no, back then he simply accepted the perks and privileges of his position and now he is now betraying the confidence, friendship and loyalty of not only his former colleagues but of the President.

Rove, White House Dispute McClellan Book Tales
By Michael D. Shear and Michael Abramowitz

Reaction has begun to the new tell-all book by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
Karl Rove, the subject of many of McClellan's charges, said on Fox's Hannity & Colmes last night that he disputes those charges and said McClellan sounded like a liberal blogger.
"First of all, this doesn't sound like Scott. It really doesn't," Rove said. "Not the Scott McClellan I've known for a long time. Second of all, it sounds like somebody else. It sounds like a left-wing blogger. Second of all, you're right. If he had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them."
Rove said that he did not recall McClellan being in many of the meetings on subjects that he criticized. He said McClellan's comment in the book that he was surprised to see Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby talking together is evidence of his absence from major meetings.
"Well, look, it goes to show how out of the loop he was, that he didn't think we spent much time together," Rove said. "I mean, over the course of the seven years or six years that we worked together, Scooter and I spent a lot of time first on the campaign and then when we were at the White House we were on several committees together."
The White House sloughed off the book this morning as the work of a disgruntled former staffer.
"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement for reporters traveling with Bush in Colorado today. "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."
She added: "The book, as reported by the press, has been described to the president. I do not expect a comment from him on it -- he has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers."