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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Scott McClellan's Lee Atwater Moment
Posted by Jill | 5:57 AM
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is trying to get himself some Lee Atwater-style absolution without having to die a horrible death from a brain tumor to do it.

Keith Olbermann reported last night on how McClellan throws his former boss under the bus:





It was always clear that Scotty was really uncomfortable with the kind of utter horseshit he was required to spew as part of his job, but the fact remains that he did it -- and in the process, helped to bamboozle an incurious nation. And even in this horrifying expose of what many of us have always known, or at least suspected, about the Bush Administration, he still falls under the spell of the towel-snapping frat boy:


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.”


So what are we to take from that? Those of us who have known all along that George W. Bush was NOT the second coming of Churchill, Reagan, or whatever other major figure into whose boots the media tried to cram this intellectual lightweight and chronic, lifelong fuckup, have vascillated between thinking that he's either completely evil or Dick Cheney's useful idiot -- the affable guy the Republicans turned to to be their own grinning, charming rogue after eight years of another one. That their grinning, charming rogue was a moron was immaterial. If McClellan is truthful, and not trying to salvage his sorry ass in the face of the famously vindictive Bush family, then we have to come down on the "idiot" side of the fence, although Bush's faux-religiousity and refusal to ever acknowledge any fallibility played right into their hands as well.

Either way, I suppose we could be grateful for McClellan for pulling the curtain away on the bloodstain on this nation's history that is the last eight years. It just would have been more useful if he hadn't waited until it was nearly over, until after over 4000 families had lost their sons and daughters and tens of thousands of American young people had lost their limbs, parts of their brains, and in many cases, their ability to cope.

But perhaps the most telling part of what's been reported about the book is, as Olbermann and Rachel Maddow discussed at the end of the clip last night, how it may very well implicate Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in a criminal conspiracy. Of course, to actually DO anything about these revelations would require a Congress and a Democratic Party that cares more about doing what's right than about what Tim Russert might say -- and we don't have that. So when the door closes on the Bush Administration; when he turns the keys over to whomever is going to succeed him, leaving an American economy in ruins, Iraq in a quagmire, and in all likelihood, a wider conflagration in the Middle East after his bombing of Iran, he can walk off into the sunset hand in hand with Dick Cheney, each grinning from ear to ear, with visions of millions of dollars in speaking and lobbying fees dancing in their heads, knowing that there's no one in Washington who has the fucking balls to use the laws they're pledged to uphold to hold these criminals accountable for the atrocities they have committed against this country and against humanity.

As for Scott McClellan, I'm sure he thinks this book will allow him to sleep at night. But I for one hope that the images of the dead in Iraq haunt him forever.

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11 Comments:
Blogger Kevin Hayden said...
As the wharf rats abandon their Titanic, I've yet to hear a single apology to any Iraqi and few have apologized to Americans who've paid the costs of their corrupt conspiracies.

I'm in favor of demonstrations at bookstores across the nation selling this swill. Pouring urine samples on Scotty's literary tomes oughta send the proper message.
5/28/08, 7:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I have to agree with Kevin. May we hope Scotty's tome sells but one copy which is then immediately put onto the Net for all to read free. Should we hope that even the one copy is from the "freebies" already out there and that his income from this thing is zilch!! Hope he didn't get a large advance.
Nah! Won't happen. "Everybody" will insist on buying it.. If noone else, then the 20% who still thing W is God!.

But as to why he is as circumspect as I suspect he will be:
1) - Why would we expect him to actually be in the loop? He was just the mouthpiece blabbing -- obediently -- what he was told to say. Are the actors involved with the playwriting?
2) - I'd be very, very careful what I said about the Bushies if I really knew where the bodies were buried. We talk about "Clinton conspiracies", but Daddy Bush really does know his way around black ops; head of the CIA and who knows exactly what else in his career. I'm quite sure he knows exactly which phone number to call when he wants someone "disappeared".

Did I just suggest why there is such reluctance among the Dems to actually do something about the criminal acts??
Nah! He wouldn't threaten to eliminate or expose members of Congress now, would he?
5/28/08, 9:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Kevin,
You should go to Iraq and do a head count of those who want an apology.
5/28/08, 9:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This all assumes that the way the Iraq war turns out will be a fiasco. There is a possibility that Iraq will turn into a stable and, with its oil resources, a wealthy one. Personally, I hope it does turn out that way. Don't you?
5/28/08, 9:33 AM  
Blogger Melina said...
y'know, maybe its unseemly, but I hope that dough boy McClellan gets a big old brain tumor to go in the space where his ethics and morals were supposed to be.
it was obvious that he was a big liar all along, and its just a little too late for him to come out and take it back.
nope, no rapture for you Scotty boy...
5/28/08, 9:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Not unseemly - just insane
5/28/08, 11:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
anonymous wrote:

"There is a possibility that Iraq will turn into a stable and, with its oil resources, a wealthy one. Personally, I hope it does turn out that way. Don't you?"

Part of me hopes that Iraq does well, especially since America has done well in the past, not so much in the present, and misery really doesn't love company. Nobody should have to live in a war zone (translation: get our troops out of Iraq ASAP) and nobody should have to live in a society dominated by Bible-thumpers, or Koran-thumpers for that matter. An affluent Iraq would just be painting a bull's eye on the entire nation so that other global bullies like US can come along and try to tell them what gang to belong to; in a way, I also don't want them to be affluent targets of neocolonialism. I'd just be happy if they were left alone.

But, hey, what real people want is irrelevant to the movers and shakers who think they can make history at a whim, like Henry "Kill Allende and bring back the Shah" Kissinger and George "Iraq will be a slam dunk" Tenet. These people need to be kept in Gitmo for the rest of their natural lives, away from average, everyday people.

Patrick Drazen
Chicago
5/28/08, 3:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
"American economy in ruins"?

You sound like Michelle Obama!
5/28/08, 4:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
anonymous:
hope is not a plan.

also, anonymous: american economy IS in ruins.

oil pre bush/cheney in white house, less than $20 a barrel. a mere 8 years later, more than $130 a barrel. they served themselves and their friends in the bidness well, at the expense of the nation.

likewise the staggering trillion-dollar deficits to finance this criminal war (and feed their military contractor buddies).

likewise the collapse of the dollar against the euro and other world-class currencies.

if you haven't noticed the decline of your nation, anonymous, you haven't been paying attention. these are the consequences of a sociopathic kleptocracy. they play their "base" for patsies, since the result of their actions is to leave the u.s. a shadow of its former standing.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels," dr. johnson said, never proven so right as now.
5/28/08, 4:38 PM  
Blogger Russell Johnson said...
Although I agree that McClellan's motives should be questioned, I also feel that he personally is not the story.

A month ago I did not care about Scott McClellan and still don't. I think the important thing here is the truth of what went on inside the White House. Attacking McClellan, although somewhat warranted, seems irrelevant to me.
5/29/08, 2:41 PM  
Blogger Eric Easterberg said...
So much here to comment on, but I'll pick two:

1) I'm sure we all hope that "Iraq will turn into a stable and, with its oil resources, a wealthy one" (I'll assume the word "country" or "democracy" is missing, not that anonymous wishes Iraq to be a home for horses), but it's not clear that an outcome like that will be worth the cost to us.

Not to get all realpolitik here, but I think the cost we've paid deserves more of a reward than vague "stability" in one country in a big region.

2) McClellan isn't the problem, most of us have had to compromise on our jobs. To blame him for the stuff he had to say is pointless. He may never win the "Spine of the Year" award, but he made an accommodation to the realities of his experience.

Look at what he's actually saying, even though little of it is a big surprise, and ask yourself if we can ever again allow such liars and sociopaths to take charge of our country.
5/29/08, 4:48 PM  
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