McClellan Book: Bush Misled U.S. On Iraq, Other Things

They just keep coming out. One after another they are confessing or confirming what has been obvious for some time. First lower level or unknown ex-Bush staffers, then the better known or well known, they make their predictable disclosures. Now former White House Press Secretary and Bush spokesman Scott McClellan has made his book deal and is pouring out his guilty heart. The White House is shocked, of course--not least because McClellan was a trusted, long-term, up-from-Texas member of the Bush team.

The Washington Post reports:

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated 'political propaganda campaign' led by President Bush and aimed at 'manipulating sources of public opinion' and 'downplaying the major reason for going to war.'

He also unsurprisingly singles out Karl Rove and VP Dick Cheney for special acknowledgements. The Post reports that McClellan describes Bush as "a willing participant in treating his presidency as a permanent political campaign, run in large part by his top political adviser, Rove." And they quote McClellan as elaborating on just what that meant:

...never explaining, never apologizing, never retreating. Unfortunately, that strategy also had less justifiable repercussions: never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising. Especially not where Iraq was concerned.

Making one of McClellan's points in a different way, an Atlantic article, The Rove Presidency (September 2007), noted that after the elections, Rove's White House political office continued to oversee a constant campaign-like process that was so divisive outside and inside the GOP that it made it impossible to effectively govern.

Instead of modest bipartisanship, the administration’s preferred style of governing became something much closer to the way Rove runs campaigns: Steamroll the opposition whenever possible, and reach across the aisle only in the rare cases...And Rove, forever in thrall to the mechanics of winning by dividing, consistently lacked the ability to transcend the campaign mind-set and see beyond the struggle nearest at hand.

But in addressing Dick Cheney's role, McClellan just adds to the ever-growing, unsettling mystique of the man, refering to the Vice President as "the magic man" who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no fingerprints.

The Post also reveals a recent explanatory e-mail in which McClellan shares this reason for sharing his story:

I wanted to take readers inside the White House and provide them an open and honest look at how things went off course and what can be learned from it.

And then, of course, there's the money.

Expect the confessional queue to continue to get longer in the months and early years after G.W. leaves office.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24848910/page/2/