While I understand the glee that the left-wing is having regarding the White House freakout over McClellan’s book, and while I wholly agree he is a jackass for having stood by and served of the mouthpiece for this administration while they did all this bullshit, there is always the possibility that he did not realize how totally full of it this administration was until he was outside of DC and had a chance to measure the difference between the rhetoric of the administration and the reality on the ground (something that was mentioned earlier on MSNBC), as McClellan was a true believer.
Additionally, and more importantly, I simply can not be the only person who remembers the Democratic freak-out when George Stephenopoulos wrote his tell-all book at a comparable time in the waning days of the Clinton administration. I don’t remember things perfectly, but I could swear the words Benedict Arnold and traitor were chucked around then, too.
So while it is nice to confirm what some of us dimmer bulbs learned too late and what many of you knew all along, remember that every administration considers this kind of tell-all to be an act of treason. That bunker mentality is part of what is so wrong in Washington.
Just saying.
cleek
speaking only for myself, of course (though i know i’m not alone here) i don’t remember anything about Stephenopoulos writing any book because i was completely disengaged from politics until 9/11. so anything pre-9/11 Dems had to say about anything? not my problem.
The Moar You Know
I’d buy this thesis more if Scotty hadn’t always looked like a two-bit hood flopping around underneath a bright light in a police station.
He always looked like he was lying. You can’t convince me that his poor evasions, stammering, and buckets of flop sweat he produced every time he got behind that podium were the hallmarks of a guy convinced he was telling the truth.
I’ll say this – I always felt sorry for the guy, not because he was getting fed a line of shit, but because he was so awful at his job. You could tell he wasn’t having a good time up there.
sunny
Yes, I remember when Stephenopoulos wrote his book and I was chucking rotten tomatoes with the best of ’em.
yup
Fair enough point, but what George revealed was patty-cake stuff compared to what Scott’s confirmed about the Bush years – things we’ve been screaming about and being shouted down over, and that resulted in untold lives lost, trillions squandered, etc. Big difference.
Third Eye Open
John,
Not to come across as a contrarian–even though I am–I never quite understood this TruthFact that states, “Washington is a bubble, outside of reality, and only after stepping back into the Hinterlands of ‘RealWorld’ can one begin to exit the fog.”
Now call me simpleton–I DARE YA!–but is it really too much to expect that people on the Federal dole be capable of weighing evidence and making a decision based on the evidence available?
If this were the case then what were all the DFH screaming about? Or was their dissent just a knee-jerk reaction to all things Republican?
Ted
All he had to do was measure the difference between the rhetoric in the offices and hallways of the west wing, and his own rhetoric in the press room. I just can’t believe that Bush staffers are so deluded that they actually believe in all the crap they say and do. There had to be plenty of acknowledgment of intentional flat-out lying to the press over the years.
I guess it goes back to Roy’s Stupid/Evil ratio, and I think McClellan’s former colleagues are far more the latter.
r€nato
well, good point… I don’t fault anybody still imbibing the Bush kool-aid for feeling betrayed by Simple Scotty. My criticism is of those who would seek to discount whatever he has to say with those lame old, ‘disgruntled former employee/he’s got a book to sell’ excuses. There’s been a few dozen too many of these things-were-exactly-as-bad-as-the-DFH’s-said tell-alls for that dog to hunt any longer.
Oh and in case you haven’t had your blood pressure raised by President Fuckwit today, try this on for size:
Hey, after another 4000 or so troop deaths we might even get a thing or two right.
r€nato
I believe that late 18th-century France had a particularly effective remedy for this kind of affliction.
El Doh
For me, I kinda paid attention to the 2000 election, then the cluster fornication that occurred right after — that’s when I started to really take notice.
JPL
Amen to that, r€nato.
nightjar
The bumpkin McClellan didn’t say anything any one with half a brain didn’t already know about the Jackal’s of Bush and his inner circle. It’s main importance to me, is if, and how much it will hurt the goopers this fall, especially MCcain.
The other equally important salience is to expose the rank infidelity the press has exhibited toward it’s Constitutional duty to be an impartial arbiter of government actions.
The Other Steve
What did Snuffalupagus reveal? I honestly don’t remember him writing a book. I don’t remember quite as big of a freakout I guess, but then there weren’t blogs back then either.
There was a history prof on NPR today who put this into perspective. He said each of these guys are going to write a book telling the truth from their perspective. It’s the job of the historians to take those pieces and compare them and from that discover the real truth.
That’s not to say history will be the judge of Bush. Frankly he’s been a horrible President. I’m just saying I’m glad that McClellan did decide to write this, even if it is to escape his own blame.
Karmakin
It’s a common affliction really.
If one looks at the entire movement conservative movement (that was on purpose) right now, it’s not even so much that they think that they have better ideas to fix the problems, they deny the problems exist, for the most part in the first place. The guy probably had no idea that the problems reported existed to a substantial degree. He thought they were being exaggerated by the “liberal media”.
You hear that a lot.
Hell, even their reason to exist right now, was something that they denied the seriousness of..well..up until 9/11, when they couldn’t ignore it anymore. The problem is that there are very few issues which will inspire THAT sort of response to them. Of course, I still don’t think they take terrorism seriously….
The Republican party is empty right now. They’ve been blindly fighting against change that now when change is needed they can’t cope.
woodstock007
My dream is that this is the first trickle of a Hoover Dam sized collapse of message discipline for this administration. But c’mon silly progressive, do you think the press is going to step up to the plate, or Bush is going to admit wrongdoing? Get real. Dana Perino and Katie Couric have your back Mr.Prez.
Avedon
I always had the impression he hated his job and suspected he was being fed bullshit to sell to the public. He didn’t seem to have it down the way Comical Ari did, and he didn’t seem dumb enough to think the stuff coming out of his mouth made sense, the way Perino does.
PK
I think the white house reaction is probably the same as anyone/organization would feel if an employee who you thought was loyal comes out and trashes you to save his skin.
I only watched a few of his news conferences and he always seemed as he was about to burst into tears when anyone asked him a tough question.
It is so satisfying to watch get Bushed pissed on by this incompetent buffoon.
We won’t get any justice or accounting for the failures of this administration, so I guess we will have to make do with watching everyone depart the white house with a swift kick to Bush’s head.
r€nato
Ari Fleischer: “I dare you to call it bullshit. Go on, make my day.”
Scott McClellan: “I am mortified that I have to stand up here and peddle this bullshit.”
Tony Snow: “I believe whatever bullshit I get paid to peddle.”
Dana Perino: “Yeah, it’s like, bullshit, but you know, whatever.”
evie
The only thing that remotely interests me in this book is watching the media fall over themselves while defending their stellar journalism record against McClellan’s outrageously false attacks against them. They all did their jobs, and they did them well. Scottie clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Calouste
I’m confused that this was actually reported as McClellan going “nukular”. The way everything was written gave me more the impression that he was going nerf gun.
JGabriel
R€nato:
Actually, I believe the typical Perino response is more like this:
.
Tom
I don’t recall the Clinton administration doing anything that begins to compare with the Iraq debacle. For which, of course, St. Hillary voted.
That said, from the beginning of the Democratic primary I initially supported and gave money to Obama, wondered if either Clinton or Edwards would be better, voted for and gave money to Obama, and have since become disgusted with the conduct of two of the three Clintons (I have nothing against Chelsea, and in fact applaud her snippy response to people asking her to comment about Monica).
I can look back at various things during the Clinton administration and see roots of my current opinion…most notably the health care debacle showed Hillary’s unwillingness to work with other Democrats, regardless of the cost to the party. Despite my opinion of her repulsive vote on the Iraq war, the Kyle-Lieberman “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” bill, etc., I had supposed that her experience in the Senate might have taught her a lesson about her health care debacle and working with others. Her campaign has told me otherwise. So the roots, at the time, were uncertain.
But none of this begins to compare with Bush lying about war in Iraq. Clinton supported it…that was a craven act. Bush’s was a depraved act. All of this was readily knowable at the time. Clinton and Bush both held positions that left them immeasurably better able to know such things than I.
Kevin
How old are you, approximately? I’m not being an ass, I’m actually curious about it.
binzinerator
John stop cutting this craven tool any slack. You knew what was up after Schiavo. That was years ago. You can argue that Scotty was under the influence of the Kool-aid then, but not now. It’s 2008, John. For God’s sake, where is that ‘personal responsibility’ your former party still loves to carp about? It’s fucking halfway though 2008, and McClellan is only now just saying “I think I have some second thoughts about what I did. (Uh, you can read about them for only $27.95.)”
John, the window of forgiveness has closed. Because the window of common sense has closed. Because the window of integrity has closed. It’s too late now. It’s just the rats left, scurrying off the doomed ship, trying to find whatever piece of flotsam or jetsam to cling to to keep their head above water. No more defending this “I drank a quart of the koolaid a day, and now I see the light!” bullshit. Please. It denigrates what you had the courage to do when you did it, and gives an unearned legitimacy and even sympathy to enablers and apologists like McClellan.
The man is either a witless fool, which I am certain he is not, or else a calculating cowardly stooge.
jake
WTF? Sorry man, I was born and raised here and despite what some people may want, there isn’t a wall around the place. We have access to the same information (reality on the ground) the rest of the world receives, with the added privilege of hosting protests and rallies for every conceivable issue including the war in Iraq. I’m sure Scott saw at least one. Unless you think they kept Scotty in a cage and only let him out to meet the press you’ve got a major Wookies on Endor error. Cut it out.
John Cole
Tom,
I am not comparing administrations, I am comparing administration reactions to tell-all books by former insiders. If I remember correctly, they are very similar.
Jess
Scottie is just another example of how easily human beings can be brainwashed. We all like to think that we would be immune to such bullshit, but when you cross that line into an us-vs-them mentality, you give up your ability to register reality checks. Everything you hear that challenges the bullshit just sounds like an enemy attack. Look at the Clintonistas. Look at where John Cole was a few years ago, although he had enough intellectual integrity to escape the trap.
As a Quaker, I was raised to value compassion and understanding, even for, or especially for, those I saw as my enemies. Although I’m not much one for high-minded idealism, I do still think compassion is a useful trait to nurture because it helps you think critically and skeptically about insane ideology. It’s kind of like the canary in the coal mine–when you find yourself losing your compassion, it’s often a sign that your ideals are morphing into something unwholesome.
Tom
OK, on that level, that’s fair. I think the degree to which an organization is “full of it” is relevant to one’s perception of the harmful effects of the kool-aid, and to that level comparing administrations seems relevant. But, I guess in part the Clinton’s were “full of it” in ways that this campaign is making a bit more obvious.
Chris Andersen
It is a conflict. How do you embrace the obvious truth of what McLellan is saying without also giving him cover for waiting until now to come forward.
binzinerator
John, sorry for the cheap shot about the ‘personal responsibility of your former party’. Anybody who looks at the criminal and moral abomination that has been Bushism and the Republican party and stands up to it and voices that dissent when many other people who were doing likewise were being attacked — as you did — has a sense of personal responsibility. I was wrong to try to rub your nose in the GOP bullshit. You stepped above that when you did what you did.
My apologies.
Chuck Butcher
Damn, how many of you belong to organizations where you work in a stressful environment composed of serious matters with serious opponents. Where your organization is not composed of hired hitters, but believers? Your entire life revolves around that circle, barely a family life, they are your family. Think about being there from the beginning and succeeding along with the organization. The idea that Scott McClelland should have seen reality takes nothing into consideration, is taken from the view point of those never there. If you’re not trying very hard to see outside a cult, you won’t see – you will go along.
It never occurred to me that I’d be defending him. I feel like my head just fell off.
Maybe he’ll make some money from this book, I don’t know. I do know he’s done for in politics and probably in journalism and he’s probably real short of friends right now. Not to mention he’s looking at Scott McClelland as a part of making this mess. He’s probably also aware of your scorn.
Elvis Elvisberg
I was paying pretty close attention to politics, and I don’t remember much about the Stephenopolous book. I vaguely remember some nasty “traitor”-type allegations, but I don’t recall how big a deal it was, or what he talked about.
McClellan says we went to war because the president was determined to be remembered as Teh Awesomest President Ever. As did former Bush biographer Mickey Herskowitz: “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999. It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade… if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”
So, no, I’m not buying any equivalence whatsoever.
That said, I agree with your larger point. What if the White House Press Secretary were appointed by a board composed of people from the media, Congress, and the executive? And he viewed it as his job to communicate accurate information? Executive accountability wouldn’t be that terrible for America, would it?
binzinerator
Oh. How unfortunate. Not as unfortunate as a little girl having a face full of stitches.
You get back to me when you think Scotty feels as bad as this young girl and her father and mother.
Say, how would you feel if this were your daughter? Would it feel nearly as bad as “like my head just fell off”?
Ya think?
A test: Slice your face and eye up with a razor. Tell us how you feel. Does it feel as bad as you thought it would feel if your head fell off?
I’ll be waiting.
r€nato
if we excuse Scott McClellan, then we excuse any future accomplice in war crimes simply because he or she is ‘inside the DC/WH bubble’.
That shit didn’t wash at Nuremburg, you know.
Anyway, I don’t believe for a moment that he was unaware of what he was doing. He enjoyed the power and the money and he really didn’t care – or didn’t want to know – about the consequences of his actions.
AnneLaurie
I guess it goes back to Roy’s Stupid/Evil ratio, and I think McClellan’s former colleagues are far more the latter.
Nah, Scotty McClemency is well towards the Stupid end of the Stupid/Evil axis… Evil *always* needs the support of a vast supply of Stupid to make serious progress towards its goals. And even back before Scotty jumped or was thrown from the S.S. Dubya’s Excellent Adventure, there were those rumors about Karl holding Scotty’s, um, J. Edgar problem over his sweaty bullet-shaped head. The “good” part of this widening trickle of tell-some meme-wahrs is that we can make a start on assembling a narrative history of the lies, half-truths, spin, omissions, misinformation, and other offenses that have kept Dubya and his puppetmasters “successful”. This is the first baby step towards the kind of Truth *then* Reconciliation Commission that the incoming President Not-Bush needs to appoint within 24 hours of the inauguration, because if we don’t treat the self-protective maunderings of fourth-echelon crapweasels like McClellan seriously, we’re going to repeat the post-Watergate tragedy where fourth-echelon crapweasels like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld decided the lesson of Nixon’s Fall was not “Don’t be evil” but “Don’t get caught.”
Fulcanelli
What Chuck said…
With the momentum and blood lust fever of what Bush/Cheney were up to there’s no way McClelland could have done anything other than what he did, and how he did it except just quit the gig and slip into the witness protection program on another planet, but he didn’t. Surprised? Not. Probably had to sign a loyalty oath to Bush in his children’s blood or something.
He was a Bushie before he got to DC, from a family of Texas Republicans… He was Gawd’s mouthpiece fer cryin’ out loud, he’d have been hunted for sport by his own Mother with hollow point cop killers if he’d have bailed out whining about the presssious Bush and his nassssty war plans…
That or Cheney would have eaten his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Let him cash in and rat em’ all out. Schoeden-fuckin-freude. We’ve earned it.
It’s not like what he’s saying we elitist, left wing islamofacist old-timers didn’t know already. We knew, watched it happen, and couldn’t do a fucking thing about it, this country was so fucking brainwashed.
With all due respect John, you think Hillary sends you into seizures, you got nothin’ on us who’ve been bleeding at the ears and screaming at the tv for almost eight years because of this shit.
Quiddity
Put me down as someone who agrees with Avedon.
TenguPhule
I don’t care if he believed the Virgin Mary was blessing him with breastmilk and cookies.
Line him up against the wall and shoot him with the rest of the bastards who decided blowing Iraqis was what the Kool Kids did.
daveinboca
Bush didn’t lie about going into Iraq. He believed in shitty intel from the CIA—it still comes out all the time as in the latest NIE on Iran. Read Legacy of Ashes, to understand how the CIA has foisted a load of crap on EVERY administration.
BTW, the Clinton Administration is to be faulted for what it did NOT do—which was try to find out who did the WTC bombing of ’93 & the Embassy bombings of ’98. Bill was too busy getting his “small white” area taken care of.
Phoebe
two things:
1.
You can call Scott McClellan evil, or whatever, but don’t let that be the end of the road. If we are thinking people who care about stuff, we should want to know why he did what he did. Whether or not you LIKE or “excuse” what he did is irrelevant to the inquiry. Did what he did have horrible consequences? If so, all the more reason to figure it out.
I remember after 9/11 the lefties were in “why do they hate us?” mode, and the righties were yelling at us, “because they’re evil! stop blaming the victim!” Stupid stupid assholes they were. Everyone should always want to know. Don’t worry – the evil isn’t going to rub off on you.
2. Other Steve,
It’s not Snuffleupagus, and as someone with a Greek name, I’m offended. Show some respect and get it right. It’s Steponallofus.
Chuck Butcher
Oh foisted my ass, they deliver the product desired. Who runs the CIA? The Director? Bullshit, the President does. And that IS a problem.
I put something up on Scott, not quite a defense, more an attempt to understand.
BTW trying to blast me with pictures of blown up girls is pretty pointless, I’ve got blown friendships and stressed relations for standing against BushCo since Sept 11 and being furious.
I don’t like to come on somebody else site and write a post so I did one at mine and maybe it makes a little more sense in expanded form.
liberal
I agree that it would be better had he resigned and exposed Bush, but that kind of thing almost never happens.
What he’s done is far better than what most people do. Take that piece of sh*t Ari Fleischer, for example, who’s now part of that nasty neoconservative front (a 527 IIRC).
Robert Sneddon
Daveinboca @ 2:33 am: The folks that did the ’93 attack you referenced are in jail, serving long prison sentences after solid police work and evidence collection put them there when the jury found them guilty.
As for the ’98 Embassy bombings they were quickly identified as the work of Al Queda and Osama bin Laden whereupon the Clinton administration launched cruise missile attacks at places it was suspected ObL was staying. This was condemned as “wag the dog” distraction tactics by the right wing pundits at the time.
liberal
daveinboca wrote, Bush didn’t lie about going into Iraq. He believed in shitty intel from the CIA
LOL! Moronic.
BTW, the Clinton Administration is to be faulted for what it did NOT do—-which was try to find out who did the WTC bombing of ‘93 & the Embassy bombings of ‘98. Bill was too busy getting his “small white” area taken care of.
Right. Unlike the Bush team, who immediately upon taking over the White House made combatting Al Qaeda its number one priority.
Not.
cleek
37
before 9/11, i was an Election-day Democrat. i filled the box every 4 years. but didn’t pay attention in between.
jake
OK, let’s assume the President’s Press Secretary never read the news and was too busy worshiping Bush Almighty to have a chance to form a single opinion of his own. If we take your argument as given we say bye-bye to personal responsibility for everyone in a bad organization except the leaders.
But we don’t. “I was really busy and my boss told me to!” is not a defense in our civil and criminal law. We don’t extend that luxury to soldiers who live in countries where the government has absolute control over everything people learn and I’m not extending it to anyone in bAdmin. And if you really think someone’s moral compass is that weak, they need a kicking to prevent backsliding.
Dr Rich Blackmoor
Scotty boy did not make policy. He was simply a paid mouth piece.
I wish he had spoken sooner but we need to encourage lower level Bushies to come out and tell all.
Those of us who want the truth about this administration need people who were on the inside to come clean.
I have no doubt that money was a big factor in writing this book but lets take what we can get.
Pb
Yeah, but Lohan did it better:
RSA
Isn’t this essentially what Dilulio did, giving us the phrase “Mayberry Machiavellis”? You’re right, it doesn’t happen often.
Magnus
I remember telling a friend of mine about her boyfriend “The guy is either stupid or a bastard, and I hope for your case that he’s stupid”. However, as has later been pointed out to me, and I now pass on to you, one can be both stupid and evil. This is not an axis, it’s two. And the Bush Admin …well, they’re a very good example of this.
I am enjoying the feeble attempts of our right-wing “friends” to claim that this whole thing is blown out of proportion because the media is all liberal and stuff. I don’t think they RTFA, to be honest.
Ed in NJ
I always held McClellen in very low regard, but because he was so poor at this job, not because of what he was saying in those press gaggles. That was his job, to spin the administration line. It’s easy to say he should have quit, but how many of us would have sabotaged out career like that? He put in two years, quit, and now his conscience has gotten the best of him, perhaps. Should be interesting to see him on Countdown tonight.
Perhaps, like Stephanopolous, we can all look forward to Scotty becoming a network bobblehead, furiously working to undermine Republican candidates. Then he will serve some purpose.
Barbara
I can see why people are puzzled by McClellan and less than admiring that he took so long to see the light — I am still glad he wrote this book so I won’t join the piling on. It is possible to be in the weeds and not really understand greater truths. Part of that, I imagine, is attributable to the conservative meme of being “under attack” or “beset” by the liberal enemies. In all honesty, I think I overlooked a whole lot in defense of Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky fiasco. Other people in my office had a Joe Lieberman reaction, but a lot of us rearranged our view of the world just a little bit because we hated his enemies more than we hated what Clinton did (and yes, oral sex just seemed like such a piffling offense). So for those trying to understand the mindset, that’s one parallel for you that might strike a familiar chord.
Raenelle
I completely agree with your point, John. In fact, I thought about you when I heard about McClellan’s about-face. From the little I understand about psychology, when our ideology (the umbrella of ideas we use to understand our world) is challenged by facts, we instinctively rearrange the facts to fit our ideology–until we can’t.
When Max Planck presented his ideas to the scientific community, it resisted ferociously. He wrote: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” And those were scientists! Smart people whose commitment, more than any other group of people, is to the facts. Whose very method is to test hypotheses and reject or revise the hypotheses when they don’t agree with the facts–whose very method is to prioritize the facts over their interpretation of them.
Apparently Scott himself says the change occurred over time, after he left the ‘true believer’ atmosphere that pervades the White House. What it seems to me we have with Scott is a case of a basically decent, pretty normal person who changed slowly over time as he came to grips with, for him, very uncomfortable facts.
It just seems misguided in the extreme that we expect people to see facts and truths clearly, without ideological shading. As if we were computers. As if we had no investment, no survival interest in being able to understand the world around us, as if we wouldn’t be attached to a world view that had worked up till then. Ideologies mostly never change. Real change, sincere, deep change is difficult and almost never happens over some enlightenment weekend.
Oh, and BTW, when a deep change is occurring, we instinctively keep it quiet for a while–in its cradle, nurturing it, before we ever talk about it. Then we tell just a few close friends. We never take some infant idea, something completely different for us, something as yet undeveloped, something whose implications we cannot fully understand yet, we never take that idea upon its inception and go scream it full-blown to the world.
joe
These people have a capacity to make themselves believe things they want to believe. Look at the global warming deniers.
The mechanism for this seems to be based on constant mutual reinforcement from the like-minded, so I find the idea that McClellan didn’t come to his senses until he left quite plausible.
The Grand Panjandrum
1. McClellan worked for a war criminal and said NOTHING.
2. George worked for a guy who couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants.
That is a world of difference in my estimation. My conclusion is that McClellan is the dimmest bulb in the pack or trying to make amends for being the American equivalent of Baghdad Bob.
liberal
RSA wrote, Isn’t this essentially what Dilulio did, giving us the phrase “Mayberry Machiavellis”? You’re right, it doesn’t happen often.
Yeah.
If we’re going to look at examples, Powell is much more disappointing. His excuse is IIRC loyalty to the commander in chief—when in fact his loyalty should have been to the nation and the constitution.
But people with their own moral sense and willingness to buck the system are often not found at the top, because they’re weeded out before they get there.
Crust
John Cole:
OK, John, you may not be able to remember things perfectly, but I assume you are capable of using Google. So can you find a source for any Clintonites calling Stephanopolous a “traitor” or “Benedict Arnold”? The only prominent person I can find is Bill O, who needless to say was not affiliated with the Clinton administration.
No offense, but I put rather little weight on what you think you remember from then. Which is not to say you are necessarily wrong, but you were looking at things from a shall we say somewhat distorted frame of reference at the time.
Crust
I do, however, agree 100% with this:
He had at least an inkling when he was on the job, and it clearly made him uncomfortable. I can’t see inside his soul obviously, but I think it’s a real possibility that he didn’t fully understand what was going on until after he was out and reflected on it.
liberal
Elvis Elvisberg wrote, That said, I agree with your larger point. What if the White House Press Secretary were appointed by a board composed of people from the media, Congress, and the executive? And he viewed it as his job to communicate accurate information? Executive accountability wouldn’t be that terrible for America, would it?
I don’t think the problem is that there’s a press secretary acting in the president’s interest.
The problem is the idiot press core which acts as if the pronouncements of the press secretary actually have information content.
Instead, they should build their model after I. F. Stone—go after documents and look at actual government actions, instead of asking people with obvious conflicts of interest for their spin on things.
kind of an off white
Oh, God, isn’t it sickening? It’s “Colbert wasn’t funny” all over again with actual stakes this time.
Tom Q
I know I’m chiming in pretty late, but a pretty big difference between the McClellan and Stephanopolous “conversions”: McClellan, whatever his reasons, has stepped from the White House bubble and suddenly found himself agreeing with the country at large. George S. left a spot (inside the Clinton administration) that was already in agreement with the country at large — and switched to the Beltway journalist consensus totally at odds with it.
And the results will be predictably different: after this book tour, McClellan will disappear. George is up there asking Obama important questions about William Ayers.
Cris
See Chuck Butcher’s comment. When we talk about “DC” in this context (the “Beltway Bubble” or what have you), we’re not talking about the geographical town per se. We’re talking about the hyper-political subculture — the “Village,” as digby and others have taken to calling it.
The fact that you live in the District doesn’t necessarily make you a part of that Village. Kind of like how growing up on the Lower East Side doesn’t mean you’re involved in any way with Wall Street.
LongHairedWeirdo
Nod. I agree; it does take time to shake off one’s feelings. When you’ve believed that someone or something was good, it’s common to have a hard time forcing that idea out of your head. It’s like you have to shove every bit of good feeling you used to have about that someone/thing out of your head at the same time. But not only that, you have to reconcile that with the idea that you believed all of this, when you have a finely tuned bullshit detector.
(Oh, come now… who doesn’t claim to have a finely tuned bullshit detector? Okay, lots of people, but you get my point. No one likes to admit to having a broken bullshit detector.)
I do sympathize with his situation (on the assumption that he’s sincere and hoping to repair some of the damage he’s done). But,
1) I have zero sympathy for the bashing he’s taking (and will continue to take) from the Bushies – he helped make the bed, he can lie in it. I’m not cheering it on, but I’m not shedding any tears, if you understand me. And,
2) I hope he realizes that no matter how good and noble his intentions are now, there’s a whole lot of harm that’s been done, he helped do it, and trying to put it right doesn’t undo it.
On the other hand, I do recognize that it can be awfully hard to face up to the things you did and tried to support, and try to do something about them.
HyperIon
good point. this is like a corollary to the peter principle.
the guy was a coward. he chose to go along. because it was to his benefit to go along. millions make the same mistake everyday. however, THEIR poor choices do not typically have the huge consequences that Scotty’s did.
i am never surprised by the ability of humans to bullshit themselves. discouraged, yes, but not surprised.
CaliMatt
As Ezra Klein noted, this isn’t exactly just a run-of-the-mill “JUDAS!” accusation because McClellan went out of his way to smear Richard Clarke (and I’m sure others too) for doing exaclty what McClellan is doing now. The kicker (for me) from Ezra:
“why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had.” Those words, of course, were Scott McClellan’s.
binzinerator
Sounded like both to me. Sure I can see what you were saying about being hard to see outside when you’re inside a cult-like organization, especially if you don’t try to. But the last paragraph in your comment sure sounded like you feel sorry for him. You even managed to make it sound like you knew he was feeling regret. In fact, Scotty boy was so preoccupied with soul-searching and regret that he had to wait until now to share his new-found moral center with the world — for a fee.
No doubt most of us here have blown friendships and stressed relations from disagreeing with BushCo. So what is your point? It’s not anywhere close to having one’s friends or family blown up. The maimed girl is graphic results of the criminal war poor friendless soul-searching Scotty helped sell to the public. Try to understand Scotty? Sure, go ahead. But if you meant to defend him or feel sympathy for him — no way. I refuse to even let that go uncontested.
I’m not as concerned about understanding Scotty’s motivation as I am that people here seem to have trouble ‘understanding’ such behavior — how a seemingly decent, pretty normal guy could do what he did. but it’s not a puzzle, it’s not hard to grasp. What McClellan did is an example of the banality of evil Hannah Arendt described some 40 years ago.
From Wiki: “Arendt insisted that moral choice remains even under totalitarianism, and that this choice has political consequences even when the chooser is politically powerless.” So much for the argument floated in at least one comment here that McClellan is getting a bum rap because he was only Bush’s mouthpiece.
One week into the war and no WMDs and that was somehow lost on the WH press secretary? The significance of that sure wasn’t lost on the neocons, which is why they had to gin up a new rationale for the war. And that shift was itself another big wakeup call. And no suspicions? He was unawares? No way a White House press secretary never saw any news, never asked himself, “Say, where are those weapons? Where are those vials of anthrax?” Because there were people who were asking him those very questions. He didn’t even need to exert himself to break out of the bubble; there were people there, a few WH reporters like Helen Thomas, who tried to break into the bubble.
Sure a WH press sec works for the president, works to promote his policies. But if your job means you help your boss do something illegal, you’re an accessory.
Scotty could have published his book a year ago. Or 6 months ago. Or 6 months or a year from now. He waited until now, because the timing was most auspicious. He rode the falling elevator that is the Bush administration almost all the way down to the basement and now he’s trying to step off just before impact.
Someone pointed out Scotty can be both stupid and evil, no reason those 2 things are mutually exclusive. Well he may be stupid, but he is not unintelligent and it is unlikely he was clueless.