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Exclusive: McClellan whacks Bush, White House

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Toastedturningtidelegs:
Oh boy!
--- Quote ---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.

A few reporters were offered advance copies of the book, with the restriction that their stories not appear until Sunday, the day before the official publication date. Politico declined and purchased “What Happened” at a Washington bookstore.

The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as “authentic” and “sincere,” is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.

McClellan was one of the president’s earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait.

Instead, McClellan’s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House “spent most of the first week in a state of denial,” and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.

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But he writes that he later was told that “Karl was convinced we needed to do it — and the president agreed.”

“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term,” he writes. “And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”

McClellan, who turned 40 in February, was press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006. An Austin native from a political family, he began working as a gubernatorial spokesman for then-Gov. Bush in early 1999, was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and was chief deputy to Press Secretary Ari Fleischer at the beginning of Bush’s first term.

“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.”


--- End quote ---
Should be an interesting readhttp://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10649.html

Lord Undies:
I wonder how much the George Soros Machine paid McClellan to write a book which echoes the MoveOn.org Hate Bush Constitution?  Let's see how many points of similarity we have here:

- Bush lied, people died
- Karl Rove colaberated with Scooter Libby to cover his ass about exposing Valarie Plame
- The lack of immediate response to Hurricane Katrina/New Orleans dam failure was the President's fault
- Every press secretary of the Bush White House is just a dupe in a tie

And that just from this snip from the article. 

Wretched Excess:

they were breathless about this on PMCNBC this morning.  mika bryzinski kept gasping, as though every point that fell out of scott mcclellan's retirement plan was a guilty verict at a war crimes trial.

Lacarnut:
I guess the sorry b@stard needs his blood money. With friends like him, who needs enemies. I am not a fan of the Prez but I would not stab my employer and so called friend in the back to sell a book.

Willow:
Ari Fleischer was just on the dreaded Fox News! Says Scott M. spent his entire time at the WH in support of policies, even made public appearances after leaving supporting policies. Scott M may have egg on his face and money in his pocket, and zero integrity!

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