Hey Scotty, Fool Us Once Shame on You. Fool Us Twice... Well...

Listen up, citizens. Breaking news here.

President Bush used "propaganda" to sell the invasion of Iraq, and the White House press corps was "too easy on the administration" during the run-up to the war. That's what former White House spokesman Scott McClellan has come forward to tell us in his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.

Now, McClellan has never been accused of being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it's 2008, and somebody needs to tell him -- and his publisher -- most of us figured that out a long time ago.

What's really going on here is twofold, and both folds are ugly.

"My job was to advocate and defend his polices and speak on his behalf," McClellan said Tuesday in an interview with Ken Herman of Cox News Service. "This is an opportunity for me now to share my own views and perspective on things."

This, my friends, is utter garbage. It's the William Calley defense: "I was simply following orders." I don't buy it, and neither should you.

A lot of us are really angry at Bush, and there's a tendency to cheer when somebody -- anybody -- lands a punch on him. Clearly, more than a few members of the mainstream media share that frustration. The challenge is to slow down and not be fooled again.

We need to ask ourselves a fundamental question I teach students at Columbia journalism school: "When someone offers you something titillating and potentially damning to someone in the public eye, ask yourself, 'What does this person have to gain if I buy this story and repeat it to a larger audience?'"

The answer doesn't always determine whether to report the information, but it helps put the allegations in a broader and more appropriate context.

It doesn't take much sophistication to see this book is a self-serving public relations ploy by McClellan, who desperately needs to regain some semblance of credibility with the public and mainstream media. He's 40 years old, and he's been a political flack most of his adult life. Like those before him, McClellan is hoping to leverage the title of "former White House spokesman" -- the crest of honor he wore for nearly three years while he breached the public trust -- into a career as a high-paid media analyst or public relations guru.

The pathway, conventional D.C. wisdom says, is to dump on Bush and play the victim. Do it in a carefully orchestrated roll out of selected media interviews that qualify as news because of the source, not the substance of the material. It's an old story: No honor among thieves. Quel rat.

I haven't read the book, which is set for release on Monday, but when I do, I'll be looking for information I haven't seen in the early stories by selected reporters:

* When was the precise moment McClellan first knew the president of the United States and his inner circle were systematically lying to him?
* What was the tip-off, and is he now fully aware of every lie he told for Bush?
* And when he found out, why didn't he immediately resign and call a news conference to correct any and all false impressions he helped create about the Iraq war and the Valerie Plaime affair?

That's the story McClellan needs to tell. It's our national history. It's the mea culpa he has to offer to his real bosses -- those who paid his salary -- the American people.

Had McClellan done his due diligence and come clean in the fall of 2003 (a full year before the 2004 election) instead of waiting until 2008 and writing a book to profit from these scandals, our national history and involvement in this immoral war might be different.

McClellan alleges that Bush waged "a permanent campaign" that kept him from making the best decisions for the country. The irony is that is precisely what this seasoned public relations man is doing for himself by tossing the media tidbits about cocaine rumors and a specious meeting between Rove and Scooter Libby.

The sad thing is so many members of the media are falling for his tricks. Again.

I haven't read anything new in either case. Bush doesn't remember using cocaine. Is that a surprise? Libby and Rove talked behind closed doors but we don't know what they said. Oh my! Yet, those anecdotes are enough to throw out, yell "fetch," and whip into a frenzy bloggers and a press corps working in a 24-hour news cycle that favors sensationalism over substance.

This is McClellan's shot at shaping his place in history, and so far, the man who studied from the Bush/ Rove playbook for seven years is using the tricks he learned from the masters to deflect reporters from a simpler, more basic and more important story.

Something special and out of the ordinary is required for two positions in the executive branch: attorney general and White House spokesman. The person who takes either job must be accountable to the American people in a way other cabinet or administration offices aren't.

In the darkest days of Watergate, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than soil the history of the Justice Department by following Nixon's order to fire the special prosecutor. Like Richardson and Ruckelshaus, McClellan's salary was paid by you and me, but unlike them, his loyalty wasn't to us. It was to "the permanent campaign."

Every working day, day after day, for almost three years, McClellan woke up, shaved, got dressed, looked himself in the mirror and went to work where he made a series of conscious decisions about his public trust.

McClellan chose an ethic of obfuscation and manipulation rather than one of honestly and forthrightness. The record of every news briefing he gave, including the infamous one on Sept. 29, 2003, where he effectively cleared Rove and Libby of involvement in the Plaime affair, is available on the White House website. (Also noteworthy is the contentions exchange between McClellan, Terry Moran of ABC and David Gregory of NBC on July 11, 2005.)

McClellan is hoping we'll buy the story that he went to work for a good guy who had some bad advisers, and those bad advisers got between him and his boss and hung him out to dry. That is a simplistic bunch of hooey.

McClellan knew Rove -- Rove's contempt for the media and his zeal for manipulating it -- back in Texas, years before they went to the White House. Every press secretary knows the guys close to the boss think he is expendable, and every press secretary, just like every reporter, is responsible for verifying information before offering it to the public.

McClellan owes us more than titillating anecdotes about Bush and Rove. He is for better or worse a minor historic figure, and he owes history the complete and full answer to some simple questions, beginning with: "When did you first realize you had been sent out to lie to the American people, and why didn't you resign and come clean immediately?"

That is the story, here. Until McClellan comes forward with an honest answer about the details surrounding that, he and his cleverly crafted book and the public relations tour to sell it are simply more of "Washington's Culture of Deception."

Related: Scott McLellan, Former Press Secretary, Attacks Bush's White House

Comments

[lewes17266]

McClellan will be answering questions today online at the Washington Post. I think it is scheduled for noon. You can post questions anytime.

[Cramus]

It's never too late to come forward. It was not safe to come forward before. No one would of listened. There were people that did, but they were shamed. In addition, he stated that he evolved to his present views. Distance and time tends to give one a better perspective of reality. And again, by coming out now, hopefully, it will prevent the same from happening again toward Iran. He should try and make money from this. I'm sure many doors of opportunity will be closed to him, given how nasty the Bushies are.

[JBS]

Horsefeathers!

Maximum Effective Range of an excuse is is zero point zero meters.

[jqcitizen]

Joe-

You no doubt recall the not so veiled threat to the white house press corps from McClellans predecessor, Ari Fleisher ..."watch what you say".

It seemed, to me, from that point in time this 'elite' group of journalists were more concerned in retaining their press credentials than asking questions and demanding honest answers. -To be relegated a mere embedded correspondent, in a war zone, parroting the Don Rumsfield propaganda would have taken them off the nightly news programs that could make them famous. Broadcasting propaganda from Washington DC seemed to be OK.

McClellan continued this 'Tokyo Rose' message to America until he realized the jig was up and do like his successor, Tony Snow. ..."Find a job that I can make some money".

We can expect a book from Snow soon and Dana Perinos should be a real thriller.

[sleepless]

I add another question for the Scott"

"How many dead in Iraq today, Scott?"

[hopeless277]

You're right, Joe. He should have just kept his mouth shut and gotten a job at the Heritage Instute. Reinforcing the notion that The Bush Gang are dishonest and corrupt does no one any good. What happened to his loyality to the Commander-in-Chief? He disgraces both himself and the nation by revealing what he saw and heard. Some things the public is better off not knowing.

[devanate]

Say what? You really are hopeless if you believe that. They should all come clean (not like I think they will) and stand trial!

[JBS]

Irony is a lost art.

[tulsey]

See no evil, hear no evil...Oh shit! Incoming!!

[jcutbirth]

I am totally dumbfounded that you read that essay and concluded that my position was that McClellan should have kept his mouth shut.

I wrote:
"I haven't read the book, which is set for release on Monday, but when I do, I'll be looking for information I haven't seen in the early stories by selected reporters:
* When was the precise moment McClellan first knew the president of the United States and his inner circle were systematically lying to him?
* What was the tip-off, and is he now fully aware of every lie he told for Bush?
* And when he found out, why didn't he immediately resign and call a news conference to correct any and all false impressions he helped create about the Iraq war and the Valerie Plaime affair?

I also wrote:
" ...he owes history the complete and full answer to some simple questions, beginning with: "When did you first realize you had been sent out to lie to the American people, and why didn't you resign and come clean immediately?"

I believe journalists should use the book as a point to FORCE HIM TO ANSWER for the role he played in perpetuating the war in Iraq and the Plaime Affiar and not be distracted by his attempt to point out selacious tid bits about Bush.

I don't know how to make it simpler than that.




Did you read the graph where I wrote:

[robynuva]

I am embarrassed to admit it, but back in 2003 I bought the Iraq war propaganda hook line and sinker, and I HATED Bush with the heat of a super nova. It just never occurred to me that a President would lie us into a war. (I guess at 47 I didn't have enough Nixon experience to recognize how bad a President can be)
If Scott McClellen put his doubts aside because he could not believe his boss and friends could not possibly be as bad as they seemed, I can understand. If it took him, a loyal Bush supporter andf Republican, longer to realize what was going on than it did many Americans, that is understandable too. Let us not complain how long it took him to come to the party, let's be glad he showed up at all.

[zaneblue]

I think it highly likely that McClellan would have been punished in some way if he had spoken out at the time. Rove threw Don Siegelman in prison, in solitary confinement for nine months, I do not doubt he would do much worse to someone in the fold who posed a threat. I think McClellan, even so long after the fact, is showing some balls.

[jeffinrr]

zaneblue said, "I think it highly likely that McClellan would have been punished in some way if he had spoken out at the time. ... I think McClellan, even so long after the fact, is showing some balls."

I agree with your first statement that McClellan would have likely been punished, or at least attacked and ostracized, if he had spoken out early. However, I completely disagree with your last statement.

It would have taken balls to speak out during the time when Bush was still popular and he had the power to crush McClellan. At this time, McClellan's criticism could have made a difference and possibly even influenced the 2004 election. A ballsy man that was really standing on principal would have stood up at this time and spoken out.

But to wait until Bush is wildly unpopular, his policies have been discredited by history and its safe to criticize him is in my opinion what make McClellan a self-serving weasel.

[robertlockwoodmills]

Professor Cutbirth is surely right that Scottie McClellan should have resigned and given his reasons for doing so then. But Mr. Cutbirth misses the central point about all this, which his journalism students at Columbia no doubt understand without his help.

Scottie-boy says the mainstream media were too easy on Bush. That's what this is all about. If the news media were truly independent and not controlled by their Wall Street overseers, it wouldn't matter what Scottie McClellan said, because the media would immediately prove it was bullshit. But the press and TV networks have been afraid of "losing access," because the Bush White House punishes anyone who criticizes it or calls its "facts" into question. If Congress had any balls at all, it would pass legislation forbidding consolidation among media oligarchies...in other words, enforce the antitrust laws that already exist.

[kasha]

He's a worm for sure. But whenever an eyewitness to high crimes starts talking it's probably a good idea to start listening and asking questions.

[mbaty]

We want the truth, yes. But we don't want that truth several years too late in a book form that is now (surprise) for sale by someone who clearly doesn't have much of a career now that he's out of the worst presidential administration in the history of America.

[lewes17266]

Would it have been possible for him to talk about it while on staff?

The press is definitely negligent. They do not serve the public because they do not really care.

I believe most politicians are corrupt and collusion makes it possible.

[dotmafia]

Hans Fritzsche, Chief of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry's Radio Division.

Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1946

"Between these criminals and myself there is only one connection: they merely
misused me in a different way than they misused those who became their physical
victims."

"In really serious questions of policy and the conduct of war I did not commit a single falsification and did not consciously tell a single lie."

"But decisive for such a news machine is not the detail but the final fundamental basis on which propaganda is built. Decisive is the belief in the incorruptibility of the leaders of the State, on which every journalist must rely, and this basis is shaken by what has become known today of mass murders, of senseless atrocities and by the doubt in the honesty of Hitler's protestations for peace."

"I am convinced that Hitler and at least some of his colleagues had deliberately lied to the people, in some important instances, right from the beginning of their political career, and, something that is not so important to history, I personally consider that, on these points, I have been deceived."

"The main guilt of people such as Fritzsche is that they did know the actual state of affairs, but despite this, proceeding according to the criminal intentions of the Hitler Government, intentionally fed the people with lies or, to use an everyday expression, 'threw dust in their eyes.'" ~ Ferdinand Schoerner

[SoldDowntheRiver]

Let me see if I get this straight..­.McClellan finds his conscience and we in turn crucify him for it. Sound about right? The author implies that McClellan has no right to speak about what really happened, and in turn implies that the American people equally have no right to hear the truth. Unless of course he had spoken it at the time, which would have surely caused his immediate release and immediate hatchet job by the Rove/Bartl­ett/Cheney attack machine. Attention Americans, you don't deserve the truth unless journalists are the ones who approve it for you.

[egal]

What does it matter what he seeks to gain by this? The point is that everybody with a brain and a willingness to see the truth already knew all of this, and now we have it confirmed by an insider. This is a GOOD THING.

And, just as his report would have been more meaningful had it occured when such revelations would have potentially resulted in a positive impact (meaning a downward shift) upon perception of our commander in cheat, so too would this article be more than hot air had it actually addressed the book's content rather than assumptions.

[swift goat pet for truth]

It would be a good thing if he was telling the truth about the inner workings.

It is worthless if he is just making up stuff to make a buck.

I think he was lying then, and he is lying now.

[mlaiuppa]

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you anyway."

Just because McClellan has something to "gain" doesn't make it any less the truth. In the true American capitalistic system, he was simply offered something worth his while (wile?) to come clean. He gets to unburden his soul and try to clean up his image/legacy and in the process offers proof positive to those that suspected or knew all along. It's supposed to be a pretty entertaining read too.

Why watch Titanic? Didn't you know the boat sank? Ditto Apollo 13. It's the journey, not the destination.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Is he trying to unburden his soul, or is he trying to burden his bank account?

[oceanbreeze]

No-one should buy this book (in fact, a boycott is in order).

[swift goat pet for truth]

Wanna read his book.

Wait a bit, then borrow it from the library.
Or a used book store.