George Bush's biggest former defender rolls over on his ex-boss, is it conscience or wisdom?
(SALEM, Ore.) - The meanest and most evasive White House Press Secretary in history, Scott McClellan, has rolled over on President George W. Bush, calling his performance at the time just exactly what it was... so much bull. But what happens next?
"Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is lashing out at the Bush administration."
That is how FOX News begins their coverage on McClellan's surprise turnaround on Bush, the man he defiantly lied for very recently during what may easily end up being this country's most tumultuous presidency ever.
But watch this bought and paid for "news" network perform a similar 180 in their political convictions in the coming months just like McClellan. Nobody wants to be associated with a total loser as many always predicted Bush to ultimately be.
McClellan performed his job while offering the most demeaning tone toward reporters ever witnessed. Perhaps it was expected by some, but McClellan's surprise departure from the Bush policies he so completely and forcefully embraced is nothing but a reaction to the forces of nature.
Those forces that only allow someone like President Bush so much time to maintain a stranglehold on a nation, any nation, for so long. They also allow a man like McClellan to know he backed the wrong horse. Maybe jumping ship from the Bush Republicans who held him in trust was an act of McClellan's conscience, but it seems entirely likely that he is just putting distance between himself and a President who very likely could end up facing charges for highly disputed political decisions that McClellan announced to the world.
Here is an excerpt from McClellan's new book:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself."
It wasn't a good day for Dana Perino, the current White House Press Secretary who fills the shoes of McClellan and Tony Snow, a former FOX reporter. (see: Who is Dana Perino?)
She still has to stand there and sling hash for a lame duck President who has shed every sign of his brief, one-time popularity with this nation.
The White House Press Corps Secretary had this to say about the book, "the loaded charge, in the book is that the President and his senior advisers purposefully misled people into war, and that we sent our young men and women into war, knowing something that we weren't telling the American people. That is not true."
Really? It is true if you look at the facts, but we somehow need to step around those in order to accept the words of Perino, and McClellan and Snow. Scott McClellan is mean, he is rude to his elders like Helen Thomas who covered the White House when John F. Kennedy was the President.
Everything he did was calculated and pre-planned at the highest levels. Scott McClellan knew exactly what he was doing when he vied for the job with Bush and he knew everything was untrue as he said it. What kind of continuing fools does he take Americans to be?
McClellan has fully severed ties with the White House, and that leaves him in a bad light with Perino.
"When it comes from somebody like Scott, who was a close friend of many of us here at the White House, those of us who fully supported him before, during and after he was press secretary are disappointed by this and saddened by it."
With an approach to running a country like George Bush's, it is no wonder that loyalty is in short supply. Scott McClellan was for a long time, George W. Bush's most ardent supporter. His allegiances blow with the winds of public popularity.
In the story I mentioned McClellan not respecting his elders and while some may roll their eyes, others take that basic notion very seriously. In this clip called "Helen Thomas gives the White House Press Secretary a shellacking":
Video
OK, lots of video goes with this one courtesy of YouTube. This clip is a report from ABC News's Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos, former Communications Director under President Bill Clinton, on Scott McClellan's departure from the White House:
In the clip the Young Turks from Air America discuss the new revelations from McClellan:
Finally, here are Keith Olberman and Rachel Madow discussing the new development. The point out that McClellan has done something almost unheard of in our nation's history. He also did it while the President was still in office. Maybe McClellan deserves a break, but I still think that it is necessary for anyone like him to always be remembered for the years he stood up for Bush under such shaky, ethical conditions. Here is Countdown:
Scott McClellan's Integrity is Blowin' in the Wind (VIDEO)Salem-News.com