Scottie Tells 'What Happened': What's In His Book and Why Congress Cares
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman
Scott McClellan testified under oath today before the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by John Conyers. As committee member and Florida Democrat Wexler suggested in a recent conversation with BuzzFlash, Republican committee members would likely focus on discrediting the former Bush press secretary, while Democrats would seek to pin down responsibility for events such as the lead-up to the Iraq war on false premises; the criminal leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity; and the Administration's attempt to discredit Plame's husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who revealed in a New York Times op-ed the administration's use of false "intelligence" to help sell the war to the American people.
Scott McClellan was President George Bush's second press secretary. His book What Happened
recounts an insider's view of the Bush Administration's mistakes and crimes. As BuzzFlash noted upon the book's release, the very fact that a former insider is "telling all" in an election season bestseller will have an impact on how Americans assess the Bush legacy and the Iraq war especially.
What has Scottie Seen?
Analysis of McClellan's testimony today will come later, but here's what piqued interest from the pages of his book. Congress will be seeking clarification on these points, made in the book:
1. The press secretary, who repeatedly assured the White House press corps in September and October of 2003 that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby were not involved in the Plame leak, was set up to lie. Chapter 10 on "Deniability" and Chapter 12, "Brush Fire," detail this. Karl Rove lied to McClellan and perhaps lied to the President about his actions, or at best he led them to draw the wrong conclusions by parsing words and obscuring details.
Regarding Libby, as Chief of Staff Andrew Card told McClellan on October 4 (page 217): "The President and Vice President had a conversation this morning. They want you to give the press the same assurance for Scooter that you gave for Karl." So Cheney spoke to Bush who then directed McClellan to relay false assurances on Libby to the press corps. Whether Cheney misled Bush or the Vice President and President together intentionally misled McClellan is unknown by McClellan. He gives the President the benefit of the doubt.
2. Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, both of whom did leak information to reporters, as the investigation eventually proved, had a private, behind-closed-doors meeting in 2005 while the Grand Jury and prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald were trying to determine the facts of the case (p. 268). McClellan saw the two go into that meeting, and he viewed it as highly unusual and suspicious.
3. In 2003, President Bush himself helped in the effort to selectively leak national security details to the media to bolster the case for war (page 294). Without telling his chief of staff, national security adviser, or the CIA director, "the president declassified key portions of information from the October 2002 NIE for the vice president and Libby to use in this effort." (p. 8)
"To defend itself against the accusations of deliberate dishonesty leveled by Joe Wilson, Vice President Cheney and his staff were leading a White House effort to discredit Joe Wilson himself. On a broader front, the White House sought to dispel the notion that the intelligence had been 'cooked' ..."
4. Four administration figures -- Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Karl Rove, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Scooter Libby -- all spoke to members of the press about the fact that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA (p.). Only some of them revealed her name and only some knew that her identity was a state secret(Pages 8-9).
5. McClellan shares glimpses of George W. Bush during and before taking office that highlight his faults. One conclusion is that Bush deludes himself to deal with inconvenient truths such as his probable cocaine use (p. 4), and in matters of war ((p 128-129). According to McClellan, Bush believes in a grand vision of remaking the map of the Middle East, and he saw regime change in Iraq as the first step. Bush believes in spreading freedom and democracy by using military force.
So did Hitler, delude himself about the eastern front.
What Scott Wants
McClellan's overriding purpose seems to be to process "what happened" and record for history his own assessments. He portrays himself as a Bush loyalist who was misused.
McClellan faults the primary powers in the Administration, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, for most of what went wrong. He faults Condoleezza Rice for being weak and only attempting to act on Bush's decisions, when she might have helped shape policy direction more positively. He excuses Bush as being "only generally aware" and too easily persuaded by the administration's own spin.
O.K. , Stop Right There!!!!!
We must be suspicious, right off the bat, of any writing that lets Bush off the hook, while annihilating others in the administration. Junior once said that he liked it when people "misunderestimated" him. While hilariously funny at the time, we must always take that line into consideration. I believe that Scott told a lot of truth, most of which we already knew, but did so in such a way as to drag us into the trap of believing Junior to be an idiot.
We must not go there!
One might also conclude that McClellan, after the fact, remains selectively aware.
Still, in writing about "What Happened," McClellan has shed light on the Administration's overall errors and deceptions. He regrets and illuminates their "permanent campaign" mentality, which focused on selling their war and other agenda items as though they were election contests, with no tactics off the table. McClellan also decries excessive partisanship, manipulation, and secrecy.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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