For years, Team Attack operating from the White House bunker has been well-oiled and impressive, in a creepy sort of way. "Disgruntled Former Employee" has always been a big fave. "Out of the Loop"™ and "Just trying to sell a book" are golden oldie classics.
There's one problem this time, however, with them going after Scott McClellan. Okay, there are several problems, but one really big one to start with.
The big problem, unlike years past, is that now, 81% of the country says that America is "pretty seriously" going in the wrong direction. So, when the very spokesman for the captain of the sinking ship describes in detail everything wrong that this 81% already believes, it's not a revelation, but a confirmation. When the White House claims that Scott McClellan is disgruntled, they're missing the huge point: 81% of America is disgruntled. They're on his side.
It doesn't matter if Scott McClellan was or wasn't out of the loop -- that 81% of America is out of the loop, and hurting, and angry. And they know who's to blame. Why do you think President George Bush has a 28% approval rating?
Scott McClellan may be trying to sell a book, but it's a book 81% of America says it's aching to read.
In fact, that's what's so bizarre about the White House unleashing Team Attack on McClellan, keeping his criticisms alive. Criticisms that 81% of the country grasps. Why the White House doesn't just let the book drift away in silence is amazing. The book is #1 right now on Amazon.com. The McCain campaign must be beside itself - texting the White House hourly, "SHUT UP ALREADY!!!" "U R KILLING US!!!"
The White House isn't shutting up because they aren't hard-wired that way. After 7-1/2 years of attacking all criticism, it's become an involuntary reaction. They must do it, no matter how counter-productive and wrong-headed.
But this isn't the same as with Richard Clarke, or former-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. Those books came when there were still conflicted viewpoints in America about the Bush administration and its Iraq War. Not anymore. When 81% of America agrees, the ballgame is over. But the Bush administration and Team Attack doesn't seem to understand that. It isn't that "the times they are a-changing." The times, they've a-changed.
Actually, the entire Team Attack campaign against McClellan seems somewhat disappointing compared to the full-frontal grenades we've come to expect in the past. Where are the Jean Schmidts smearing war-hero John Murtha as a cut-and-run coward?
Instead, we get the paltry appearance of dragging Ari Fleischer back from the dead, offering nothing except the grasping suggestion that McClellan didn't write the book but had an editor who made "tweaks."
Hint: all book writers have editors. Publishers tend to insist on this. Charles Dickens had an editor. Fyodor Dostoyevsky had an editor. Karen Hughes's ode to George Bush's flawlessness had an editor. Even Jenna Bush had an editor.
And here's the thing - -even if the book was ghost-written by Barack Obama, no one is denying the facts. Well, okay, Karl Rove is -- but then, Karl Rove is looking at prison time, so he sort of has to deny things.
That's the oddity about the attacks this time around. There's pretty much no denial. Just "disappointment" at what a former press secretary did.
Honestly, I'm sorry what this former press secretary did, too -- though I'm referring to what he did when he was press secretary.
Team Attack has little more to complain about than, "Well, if he felt this way, why didn't he quit?"
Well -- he did quit. It may have taken him longer to quit than one would have liked (not many people quit the White House), but he did quit. And George Bush was there praising him.
And that's yet another massive problem the Bush administration faces with their attacks -- that presidential hug fest at McClellan's retirement. Mr. Bush wistfully saying how one day they'll sit on his porch reminiscing about the good times. It's hard to claim someone is disgruntled when his last appearance with his boss was a '60s Love In.
But perhaps the funniest of all the problems for the Bush administration with their personal attacks is the mantra, "This isn't the Scott we knew." You mean, you want us to trust you to find terrorists, and you didn't understand your spokesman who was right under your noses for a decade?? But it's worse than that. George Bush wants America to trust his magical, Zen-like ability to "look into a man's eyes and see his heart." If George Bush spent 10 years looking into the eyes and heart of his very own spokesman, and "This isn't the Scott we knew" is the best he can come up with, his finely-honed Sense-o-Meter is a lemon.
And yet the problems with their attacks get worse and worse. Apparently, they claim, we can't trust what Scott McClellan says now because he was "Out of the Loop"™ But that means we can't trust what he said when he was spokesman. And even this gets worse -- because it asks us to believe that McClellan's predecessor was in the loop, and his two successors have been, as well -- but for some inexplicable reason they kept Scott McClellan "Out of the Loop"™. It flaunts human reason.
Indeed, the blasts on Scott McClellan by Team Attack have all flaunted human reason.
In the end, the flailing attacks are like a wolf braying at the moon. The moon doesn't care, and all it accomplishes is that it gets everyone looking right at the moon.