The buzz around Capitol Hill has been about former President Bush’s press secretary, Scott McClellan's upcoming book “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.” Many liberals have embraced the courage that it took McClellan to speak out. Conservatives on the other side, view him a mediocre press secretary that has to sell out and become a traitor to his old boss in order to make a quick buck.
But what is the real story? This book is not the first one to be critical of Bush. George Tenet, William Clark, Alan Greenspan and Paul O'Neil have all released books offering their opinions about Bush's shortcomings.
The book will not offer any evidence that directly implicates Bush and Company of any wrong doing. It only legitimizes those claims because it comes from a former loyalist of Bush. White House reporters are not surprised by the books reaction. Newsweeks's White House correspondent Richard Wolfe claims, "He promised when he first started writing this book that he’d engage in some truth-telling.”
I do not find the actual book intresting as much as I find the reactions from the Bush camp. The memo has been sent out and the talking point was established. They would treat McClellan as a naive person that should have stood up and spoken out if he felt at odds.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino claims, “Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew.”
President Bush's reaction according to Perino was that, "He is puzzled, and he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years; and disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts he never came to him or anyone else on the staff that we know of."
Karl Rove chimes in, “This doesn’t sound like Scott; it really doesn’t.”
The book will not be available until the first Tuesday in June. It is already #1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list. I find it intresting how the Right chose to defend Bush by attacking McClellan's character. Will this do anything to change some American's opinions about Bush? I find it unlikely, those individuals that still romanticize this President are part of the crowd that perhaps do not engage in book reading. But, what do I know?
