As usual, Peggy Noonan nails it:
the purpose of the book is a serious one. Mr. McClellan attempts to reveal and expose what he believes, what he came to see as, an inherent dishonesty and hypocrisy within a hardened administration. It is a real denunciation.
He believes the invasion of Iraq was “a serious strategic blunder,” that the decision to invade Iraq was “a fateful misstep” born in part of the shock of 9/11 but also of “an air of invincibility” sharpened by the surprisingly and “deceptively” quick initial military success in Afghanistan. He scores President Bush’s “certitude” and “self-deceit” and asserts the decision to invade Iraq was tied to the president’s lust for legacy, need for boldness, and grandiose notions as to what is possible in the Mideast. He argues that Mr. Bush did not try to change the culture of the capital, that he “chose to play the Washington game the way he found it” and turned “away from candor and honesty.”
Mr. McClellan dwells on a point that all in government know, that day-to-day governance now is focused on media manipulation, with a particular eye to “political blogs, popular web sites, paid advertising, talk radio” and news media in general. In the age of the permanent campaign, government has become merely an offshoot of campaigning. All is perception and spin. This mentality can “cripple” an administration as, he says, it crippled the Clinton administration, with which he draws constant parallels. “Like the Clinton administration, we had an elaborate campaign structure within the White House that drove much of what we did.”
(…)
When I finished the book I came out not admiring Mr. McClellan or liking him but, in terms of the larger arguments, believing him. One hopes more people who work or worked within the Bush White House will address the book’s themes and interpretations. What he says may be inconvenient, and it may be painful, but that’s not what matters. What matters is if it’s true. Let the debate on the issues, not the man, commence.
The more the White House and the conservative talk circuit focuses on McClellan the man and his motives, whatever they may be, the more obvious they make it that they don’t want to do precisely what Noonan suggests and focus on the substance of what he said.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Everybody’s Talking ‘Bout Him…
Scott McClellan, probably the least respected White House Press Secretary in recent memory has written What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, a reportedly very unflattering account of the administration in w….