[cue Barbra Streisand, “Send In The Clowns”]
His father Barr, a 63-year-old former Texas lawyer, claims in a book that President John F Kennedy was assassinated on the orders of the man who succeeded him - Lyndon Baines Johnson.
At a time when the new White House spokesman is fending off criticism of Bush’s handling of the economy and Iraq, he is also having to cope with speculation that his father is either a crackpot - or may just have found the missing link in one of the most notorious mysteries in American history.
McClellan Jr has so far declined to comment on the awkward fuss over Blood, Money and Power: How LBJ Killed JFK. “I think at this time it’s best that I keep my relationship with my dad a private matter,” he said.
His father has been less discreet. Keen to promote his book, published by a tiny firm in Arkansas, he has been gaily telling interviewers that LBJ resorted to murder because he was worried about being dropped as vice-president by Kennedy. “I knew LBJ well. He was very brutal,” McClellan Sr said.
Doesn’t fall from the tree does he.