RUPERT CORNWELL
He was the most plodding, the most robotic, and -- until this week -- apparently the most loyal of presidential spokesmen. But now Scott McClellan, White House press secretary for George W. Bush between 2003 and 2006, has delivered the most wounding critique yet of this unhappy administration by one of its erstwhile senior officials.
"What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception" is no falsely touted insider memoir, jazzed up with a few titillating anecdotes to boost sales. It is a 341-page disquisition on Bush, on his misbegotten war in Iraq, and on his entire conduct of the presidency, which McClellan says was built on the use of propaganda, and on the technique of government as permanent campaign.
"History appears poised to confirm," he writes in arguably the most damning paragraph of a book full of them, "that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now ... What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."
And those are not the words of a disgruntled outsider, summoned to the colors and then casually tossed aside. McClellan largely owes his career to Bush. He was spokesman for Bush and part of the "Texas Mafia" along with the likes of Karl Rove and Karen Hughes.
A man with deep political connections in the Texan capital, Austin, McClellan first worked for then governor Bush in early 1999. He was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 before becoming chief deputy White House spokesman in the first Bush term. In July 2003, he took over from Ari Fleischer, and served as press secretary for almost three years.
It was a wretched period. True, his boss did win a narrow re-election in 2004 but, thereafter, it was downhill all the way. The draining CIA leak affair (in which McClellan claims he was misled by both Rove,
Bush's closest adviser, and by Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff who was ultimately convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice) was followed by Hurricane Katrina and the administration's disastrously botched response, and by ever growing public disenchantment with the war. By the time McClellan was eased out in April 2006, Bush had become one of the most unpopular presidents of recent times, and has remained so ever since.
In its own words, "What Happened" is a chronicle of "how the presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course." Its longer-term impact may be limited, by dint of the fact that the Bush presidency has sunk so low that it can hardly fall further. McClellan's "revelations" moreover merely confirm what all but the most blinkered supporters of the 43rd president have long since realized. But the immediate reaction of the Bush camp has been predictably bitter. Officially, the White House brushes off the book.
Unofficially however, the president's men are vitriolic, claiming he didn't know what was going on but has turned upon his former boss to boost his book royalties.
"It shows how out of the loop he was," Rove, the man once known as "Bush's Brain," said on Fox News where he is now a commentator. "This doesn't sound like Scott, it sounds like a left-wing blogger. I don't remember him speaking up
at the time."
In fact, McClellan's portrait of the president -- a man he says he still respects and admires -- is far more nuanced. Which of course only makes it more telling. Bush comes across in now familiar guise, as a skilled politician, possessed of charm and an engaging wit, who is, "plenty smart enough to be president." On the other hand, he is utterly incurious and uninquisitive on policy matters, preferring to rely on gut instinct than a detailed sifting of the arguments.
For the 43rd president, a decision once taken is always right. The approach reflects not only Bush's ingrained stubbornness but his ability to deceive not only others, but also himself.
Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/364890_bookonline29.html?source=rss
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