Well of course, I went right down to the chain bookstore and snapped up a copy just as soon as I could. That’s my guarantee to this administration: every time one of the Bush worms turns, I’m running straight out to buy his or her book.
I’m already a hundred pages into it; it’s poorly written but it’s certainly worth reading and studying. What’s amazed me in the past few days is how successful the media and GOP have been in selling an idea: the idea that the story here is “the character of Scott McClellan.” That’s not the story. The story here is the content and assertions in the McClellan book—not McClellan’s character or motives, which ceased to interest anyone the moment he left his position as White House press secretary.
(continued)
So why all the laser beam focus on what a disloyal little rat prick Scott McClellan must be, to write such things? Why the reporting on the Bob Dole hate email; why did Anderson Cooper turn interview with McClellan into an attempted “you miserable little worm” hatchet job?
Who cares about McClellan’s character? What matters is, the news value of his book.
Which leads to our next witness. Frank Rich, one of my favourite writers, says of McClellan’s book: “There’s no news here.” See? He hates what the Bush administration has done to America, but he says there’s no news in the McClellan book; no shocking revelations.
I’ve heard other commentators claim the same thing. This is a classic example of supposed experts and authorities not being able to see the forest, because of the trees.
The book is, of course, big news: here you have a Bush insider—the official spokesman, with access to the meetings, access to and instruction from Rove and Cheney and Rice and GWB—and after careful consideration, he concludes and prints what liberals, leftists, and most undecideds concluded years ago: the Bush administration is run by a bunch of liars and deceivers, and that the President of the United States is indeed an arrogant, wilfully ill-informed jackass incapable of admitting he’s wrong.
You see why that’s “news,” in and of itself? That’s the headlines: according to a long time, highly place Bush insider: the Bush critics were right all along, basically since day one of the Bush White House—this Presidency is staffed by a bunch of people who have no judgment and no respect for the truth or for the public. Now, the fact that such people have been leading the US is not news to *us*--to Bush critics like me, you, Frank Rich, etc.—but it is *huge* news to the 34% of Americans who continue to support the Bush presidency.
Here’s a Republican conservative who’s left the safety of the herd in order to tell the world that the liberals were right. That’s big news, right there: that IS a “revelation”: that sustained criticism of this White House for its dishonesty is not “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” not the product of irrational hatred or resentment. According to a man who was a part of that administration, a key apologist and spokesman: the people who said that Bush and Cheney and Rove were dishonest *were--and are--correct.*
Hence, the conservative spasm. They’re exposed; this time by one of their own. Their denials about involvement in the Plame affair? Lies. Their claim of good faith in their claims of certainty about the WMDs? Lies; the WMD rationale was merely a cover for Bush’s lust for a war of “liberation” in the Middle East. When conservative politicians, pundits, and bloggers read this, from a White House insider—they have no real answer, all they can do is attempt to demonize the messenger. When the media find out that Bush and his crew have indeed been practicing a coordinated policy of deceit since before the 2000 election was decided—the media’s response is, again: demonize the messenger, tell the public McClellan is obviously untrustworthy on this issue, tell the public “his book contains nothing new.” (The alternative would be to admit that the Washington press corps and the broadcast media were startlingly inept in their coverage of this administration and conservative politics—and they are not prepared to admit that eight years of their news coverage of the White House was startlingly inept.)
The book is worth reading, worth buying. McClellan is not a good writer; but the book is worth reading. His proposals for reform of the system are banal; ignore them, but buy the book and read it. His attempt to get Bush himself off the hook as a liar and a deceiver, are ineffectual. (For how can he claim that Bush is basically an honest man, if Bush chose to surround himself with a court of liars and deceivers (like Cheney and Rove) or incompetent yes-men (like Rice)?) Ignore his defense of “Bush the man,” and read about how he lost his confidence in “the leader” (a process that began with Bush’s personal response to the cocaine and drunk driving charges.)
McClellan’s attempt to distribute the blame for mindless partisan warfare between Democrats and Republicans is also ineffectual. He deplores the peddling of scandals and wedge issues during the nineties, but when he lists examples you see that nearly all of them have their origins on the conservative and Republican side of the aisle. The Clintons’ posture was defensive; it’s ludicrous for McClellan to suggest that they “went after” Republicans the same way that Republicans and conservatives “went after” the Clintons. (No discussion of the impact of conservative talk radio as a daily outlet for national scandal peddling and demonization of “the liberal enemy.” Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are not in the index, despite their vast influence on the American political discourse. McClellan must ignore that particular elephant in the room in order to pretend that liberals and conservatives are equally to blame for the “tone.”)
All the same: buy the book, because there is a revelation here. There is “news” here; there are personal recollections that spell out the deceptions, the lies, the conspiracies to suppress the truth. The book itself is the revelation and the news, and that makes the book worth buying and reading. Because: though he won’t come out and say so directly, McClellan is admitting to the world—he proves that it was the Bush critics who were right, all along.
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Bill Prendergast is also a contributor to Dump Michele Bachmann.
