Scott McClellan: White House Wanted Me To Stay Silent (VIDEO)

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan spoke out for the first time since excerpts of his new memoir set Washington abuzz, saying on NBC's Today show that he was answering a "higher loyalty" than his affection for President Bush: "loyalty to the truth."

Video of the segment is below, and here are some highlights via Politico:

"The White House would prefer that I not talk openly about my experiences," he said in a lengthy, at time combative interview with anchor Meredith Viera. "These words didn't come to me easy. ... I'm disappointed that things didn't turn out the way we all hoped they would."

He added: "I have a higher loyalty ... than my loyalty to my past work. I have a loyalty to the truth."

Asked if he'll ever talk to the president again, McClellan said: "I don't know. I certainly don't expect it any time soon. I know this is a tough book for some people to accept."

McClellan's book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," has provoked a furious counterattack from his former colleagues, who call it "sad," "puzzling" and "pathetic."

McClellan accused Vice President Cheney of failing his boss. "In a number of ways, he has not served the president well," McClellan said. "Part of it is the secrecy and compartmentalization ... in the White House."

And McClellan said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when she was White House national security adviser, gave in too often to Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"I felt that too often she was too accommodating ... of the other strong personalities on the foreign policy team ... and too deferential to those individuals," he said.

Former presidential counselor Dan Bartlett, following McClellan on "Today," said McClellan had used "very inflammatory words" like "propaganda," with "not a lot of evidence."

"He never communicated to us that he had these personal misgivings," Bartlett said. "There's not a lot of specific evidence about the most explosive charges."

Comments

[buckbuck11]

McClellan is not courageous. He is still an opportunistic flying monkey. Scottie is still delusional about Incurious George's culpability in disaster after disaster. Instead of portraying his former boss as the evil and bankrupt SOB that he is, Mr. McClellan has chosen to depict Bush as a hapless rube who was purposefully kept in the dark by the real "bad guys": Cheney, Libby and Rove.

I don't buy any of it. There's nothing here that folks like Keith Olbermann, Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow haven't been saying for years....it's just that the Flying Monkey wants to reinvent himself in a less heinous incarnation.

Now, what to do about the Bush Recession?

[suzyhein]

when you call someone evil, you end the conversation. we learned that from shrub. nobody is one thing.

[CaptainHowdy]

Yeah but Keith Olbermann, Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow weren't directly involved in the administration like McClellan was. His word carries far more weight.

[nyboomer]

Bush is not bankrupt. He may be morally and ethically bereft but fiscally he is far from bankrupt.

GW Bush is, was and always will be a con man. That is how he made his living. He was a failure as businessman but succeeded in always talking others into investing with him after a track record as loser. It is a skill he learned as soon as he understood that Daddy Bush would always fix whatever he he screwed up.

[biglover]

Well buckbuck. Yeah we all knew it in our minds from what we had been reading, but to have it come out from someone this close to the inside makes it more believable to the average citizen.

[Mozzer]

He looks like he wants to cry.

[escapee]

Give this man a medal.

Why so hostile, Meredith?

[CaptainHowdy]

Why didn't he quit earlier, as a protest, when it would have really mattered?

Scotty lied... your sons and daughters died!

[SeriousBlack]

"Scotty lied"

ummm, excuse me but the job of the white house press secretary is to

SPEAK FOR THE PRESIDENT

So I assume you also mean, by (completely accurate) implication, that "Bush lied" as well, right?

[ebanks84]

Absolutely!

[biglover]

At least he came out with it now. Smack dab in the middle of the election. He could have waited until after. I think he deserves a medal and at least he wrote it, unlike that Uncle Tom Colin Powell who still hasn't said an f'n word.

I have far more respect for Scot than I do Powell who was thrown under the bus and chose to stay there and let them drive over him.

[Strywever]

She's doing us a service! I'm glad she's asking him tough questions. He's not a hero . . . he's a day late and a dollar short, and he was at least for some period of time a participant in the propaganda effort. It would be inappropriate to blindly trust everything he says now, and asking questions like "Why didn't you come out with this sooner" is completely appropriate!

[Rescisco]

"The White House would prefer that I not talk openly about my experiences."

This White House, and too many of its supporters, would prefer that nobody speak openly or freely. Dissent or criticism is not an option for "patriots" who have made one's willingness to lie or to remain silent the only "patriotic" options. That's what we are fighting for, their power to tell everyone else to shut up.

[TheRealMacDaddy]

Mr. McClellan is being accused by the Dub'ya Administration and it current and former members as disengenuous because he didn't speak out "back then". What these boobs are glossing over is, Scott was just the deliverer of the message, he didn't formulate it, he didn't write it, he just delivered it. He like many others thought Bush was just being attacked by political enemies who would say anything.

This entire book (which I applaud him for writing) has given substance to the beliefs of many, many Americans that the WH engaged in a course of deception and manipulation with America.

There were so many, hell there are still some, who thought the sun rose and set in George Bush's ass and he was incapable of any wrong. Mr. McClellan at that time happened to be one of them.

I think the duct tape was ripped from his eyes after the Valerie Plame leak Rove/Libby involvement was proven. He had been flat lied to by these men who he had defended publicly. After the revelation became apparent that he was a patsy, I think he went introspective. Started asking himself, why did I defend my boss from "liberal attacks", when now it is clear those attacks were spot on.

Again, I applaud Scott McClellan, I might even buy the book. Afterall he's got a family to feed and he'll never work in that town again.

[biglover]

I agree wholeheartedly with TheRealMacDaddy.

[Cedman]

The last time I saw a former White House official attacked by his former colleagues and fellow republicans we were involved in a little dust up called Watergate. McClellan is getting the John Dean treatment.

[DickTater]

In response to comments about Scotty donating his book proceeds....
I am sure he made very little money....salary wise. And he had to uproot and move, and he was not assigned a lucrative post yet by the revolving ReCrimeLican machine.

So sure he needed the money. I guess his best move, from our justice-loving standpoint....would have been that he come forward with evidence, proof, testimony, correspondence....and then testify against these folks. Write the book afterward and keep all the money or donate some if he wants.

just writing a half-hearted tell-all, years later, and keeping all of the money isn't going to sit so well with most folks.

[naturallight]

It seems as if Scotty has found a small part of his soul.
How come Viera is so rude?

When did rude and ugly become 'tough' interviewing. How bout just some challenging questions and a smile. It looks like she loathes him. Did you catch the handshake at the end?

And why is General Electric the network who gets to capitalize on these revelations? I bet they published his book too.

Do you have any idea how many attack helicopter engines they made and profited from during this debacle? I am not a military expert by any means, but i would bet my bank account the military industrial complex did just fine during the Bush years. He was absolutely tellin tha truth when he declared "Mission Accomplished" Ka-Ching!

[ebanks84]

As long as he told the truth, I don't really care what he does with the money. It's the truth that matters.

[biglover]

Me neither. He probably needs the money This kid won't work again in any position of importance

[swift goat pet for truth]

He's a Republican.

As long as he gets money, what other people want or don't want is of no consequence.
Geez, what was the last 7 years about?
you need to learn to pay attention.

[BethStuart]

I saw Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer on Today this morning attacking McClellen. I assume this is consistent with his current role as front man for Freedom's Watch, a neo-con attack machine funded by Republican billionaires. Here are the details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom's_Watch

[Adagio]

Here's my take. When Scotty used to stand there at the podium and try to defend the flimsiest talking points of the administration he looked physically pained. He actually seemed like a decent sort who had somehow gotten himself in over his head. Turns out that was TRUE. Turns out that every one of the darkest suspicions many of us had about what was really going on in the White House were all TRUE.

And when Bartlett says, "There's not a lot of specific evidence about the most explosive charges." I say McClellan doesn't need evidence he IS the evidence.

[Johnnyblue]

Yep, I think you got it. I always felt that, too. In fact, I think Arianna is being a little tough on him (like Meredith). Who can forget the absurdity of the "I'm not going to comment on an on-going investigation" during the Plame press conference. He was in over his head (like Perino but UNLIKE Fleischer), and now, unfortunately, he's like the soldier who was "just following orders".

At the end of the day, we really don't need his book. OF COURSE we knew all along what was going on.

[truthyguy]

Interesting - the Bushies ask why McClellan never said anything while he was in the WH. That's their big defense. But they never deny anything McClellan wrote. A better question is why didn't the Bushies say anything when they knew and have always known what McClellan has now made public. The answer is they are still part of the cover up.

[tinkaboutit]

Is he Lancelot for Barbara Bush? She's pissed about how Bush' advisors made him a cuckold fool. So she sends good ol boy Scott McClellan out to frame George as a victim of his advisors? Is she trying to save George's legacy? That's what I'll be looking for when I read the book.

[Canaris]

I think he is trying to absolve himself of responsibility after the fact and make some coin doing it, which is unseemly, if not reprehensible.

That doesn't make what he wrote any less true, however.

It did lead to a moment of Zen on O'Reilly yesterday though. He had Ari Fleischer on, and was taking issue with the bit about the private meeting between Cheney and Scooter Libby. O'windbag opined that "McClellan is extropolating that Cheney and Libby we're getting their stories straight on Plame, and you just can't extropolate that if you weren't there, that isn't fair" In the very next breath, he agreed with Fleischer that the publisher must have rewritten a large part of the book to make it more anti-Bush. Extropolating, if you will, about something that he wasn't there for. The double standard apparently didn't register.

[Mitchell4A]

Truth, truth, it would have helped to have heard more of it earlier, especially from the MSM. Nice that Scott has finally gone public. Meanwhile, many of us knew then that we were being lied to, and so did a good number of representatives, who voted to go along with Bush for the sake of political expediency. (Or maybe these legislators just lied to themselves in disgraceful acts of bad faith that have cost thousands and thousands of lives.)

"Iraq: It Was Never the Right Choice: (and we told you so)"
http://msa4.wordpress.com/

[BlueOnBlue]

The reactions yesterday and today of the administrations goons (sorry - "spokespersons") to McClellan's book help to prove his points about how the propaganda machine works. As usual, everyone is spouting the same talking points after checking the secret memo.

"This doesn't sound like Scottie"

"He never expressed misgivings"

"Why didn't he resign?"

etc.. etc.

They forgot, however, to include anything which refutes what he wrote and is saying. Today, their minions in the right wing media are taking up the same talking points, but McClellan has pulled aside the curtain a bit and we can see the guy operating the levers.

[miatch]

This morning on Fox News, the next step in the operation took place with a threat from former beauty queen / newswoman Gretchen Carlson...

CARLSON: Scott McClellan better not have any skeletons in his closet. I hope he didn’t do anything that he doesn’t want the world to know about because we all have, and all of his secrets are going to be coming out.

[ibsteve2u]

Quite the threat, but since it comes across as "How dare you, to tell the truth! Now we're going to tell the truth on you!", it sort of backfires.

[NoahVail]

You were watcing Fox News? Ewww. (Thanks for this valuable service, but please do not jeopardize your mental health.)

No thought of examining the facts. What a brilliant "news operation."

[SeriousBlack]

Yep - Great "fair and balanced" "news" organization, right? Reduced to making threats against people. Pathetic.

[Strywever]

I too find it interesting that they're attacking him personally, rather than disputing facts. It's telling.

[Chillinout]

When you can't attack the message, you attack the messenger.

[swift goat pet for truth]

The WH reps never deny anything.

Must be true.

[jupitor]

I think we should give this man the benifit of the doubt. he left when he found out what was going on, and that alone could not been easy for him! Assentialy, I believe Bush did begin with big idea's to change washington. But when you go and put people like chaney and Rove on the pay roll, it's going to turn out dirty. In no way would I excuse bush for all the failure" He's commander and chief an it falls on his shoulders".But there is this big machine in washingto and it's falling apart and we are just beginning to get a peek at it! obama has tried to bring the lobbyist out in the open, and the machine that runs washington to show how bad it really is. So let's praise scotty for comeing out, and kind of heckle him for not doing so sooner. It is in my Opinion he does not want another bush in the white house and that is why he's comeing out at this time, in hopes that bush does not get a 3 rd term and these people do not continue control through John Mccain. As Mccain has already flip flop to bow down to them as a appeaser to get this nomination. Sad as it is, it;s the trueth.

[bryan0218]

You forgot, "This is puzzling"

[filo]

I think we shouldn't shoot the messenger here. He could have not said any thing or held off until after the election. I'm inclined to give him the "benefit of the doubt".