05/29/2008
White House, Right-Wing Apoplectic McClellan Exposed Their Lies
The White House and conservatives are furious at the revelations unleashed in former Press Secretary Scott McClellan's memoir, which has zoomed to #1 on Amazon
Via Think Progress: "Current Press Secretary Dana Perino said McClellan was obviously 'disgruntled,' while Fleischer said he was 'heartbroken,' and Bartlett called the book 'total crap.' MSNBC’s Kevin Corke reported this afternoon that White House officials, on background, went even further, calling McClellan a 'traitor' and likening him to Benedict Arnold. He said the White House was 'upset,' substituting that word for a word he said he could not repeat on television."
The truth is sometimes hard to hear, eh?
One thing that came out in McClellan's Today show appearance today was that Bush authorized the selective leak of the NIE. McClellan said he confronted Bush about it: "I talked about the conversation we had. I walked onto Air Force One, it was right after an event we had, it was down in the south, I believe it was North Carolina. And I walk onto Air Force One and a reporter had yelled a question to the President trying to ask him a question about this revelation that had come out during the legal proceedings. The revelation was that it was the President who had authorized, or, enable Scooter Libby to go out there and talk about this information. And I told the President that that's what the reporter was asking. He was saying that you, yourself, was the one that authorized the leaking of this information. And he said "yeah, I did."
Congressman Wexler has called on McClellan to testify before the House Judiciary Committee...
And guess who's weighing in now, saying he knew McClellan "better than any other White House correspondent or Washington reporter"? Fake news reporter/escort Jeff Gannon.
Watch TWO CLIPS, a news report on the White House reactions and selections from McClellan's Today show appearance, AFTER THE JUMP...
Posted 12:59 PM EST by Andy Towle in Books, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, News, Republican Party | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Employers always label whistleblowers as "disgruntled" whether the person reveals corruption in business or government, the suits still think that people will accept "disgruntled" as a cover. That may have been the case in 1950 but not in 2008.
Seriously, how can the Rethugs excuse outing a covert intelligence officer who was investigating Iran's attempts at getting nuclear material? What was the cost of that outing? Did American or foreign operatives die because they had associated with or helped Plame? Karl Rove and company didn't care.
Treason is acceptable as long as it is committed by a Republican in the service of the GOP. I'm still amazed that some CIA operatives haven't dug up dirt send Rove to prison.
Dana Perino, the new White House Press Secretary, is the genius who had never heard of the Bay of Pigs! How does anyone become a member of the White House staff and not know basic contemporary American history--especially one of the greatest military/political fiascoes of the Cold War?
(http://wonkette.com/politics/dana-perino/dana-perino-dumber-than-everyone-else-in-history-331981.php)
But I forget, this is the Bush White House and intelligence is not the most important criteria for getting a job there.
Finally, Jeff Gannon? Why has the White House never revealed how an active prostitute who had an web site that advertised Gannon's escort services got press credentials?
Posted by: noah | May 29, 2008 4:13:02 PM
NOAH
I have always thought that the Bush house of cards started crumbeling because CIA guys started leaking stuff soon after the Valerie Plame thing.
The sh@t really started to hit the fan for Bush soon after the outing = Don't f@ck with the CIA
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | May 29, 2008 4:21:53 PM
Forget the White House! The "Mainstream" media has known about "Gannon"/Guckert since Day Once. And they said nothing!!!!
Zeke is right. They're going to "out" Scottie in retaliation.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | May 29, 2008 5:01:21 PM
Has anyone considered that this guy might be a … hero?
having been called "traitor" makes me… laugh? Other?
Disgruntled or not, I think he knows what purpose he is serving.
It is really amazing how stupid the Bush team thinks the American public is— that they don't have the defense mechanism to realize the corner they have been put into.
Republican or not, bravo Scott McClellan!
Posted by: larry Kazal | May 29, 2008 5:33:04 PM
McClellan has always struck me as a jerk. I don't believe a word of his spiel without independent evidence.
If his allegations were true, a "tell-all" book is NOT how he would've brought them to light. Seems to me he's looking for a pay day and what better way get it than this?
Posted by: queendru | May 29, 2008 6:43:59 PM
WHY has Bush not been impeached?
I want to see his ugly little head seperated from his shoulders...
Posted by: Tex... | May 29, 2008 7:36:16 PM
Ok, so I am a repub that cannot stand W! I want him out of office more than many dems, however, this man was fired. He is disgruntled because W would not support his "mother" for governor of Texas. Sour grapes and an axe to grind. I would love to pin something on W, but McClellan is as credible as his press releases. NOT. Sorry, but possibly Robert has a point. We are hovering, searching for blood and all we get is a press secretery that was fired. And oh yeah, Mama didn't get the governor's office. Not exactly headline news!
Posted by: RB | May 29, 2008 9:01:29 PM
The opposing camps, each regarding the veracity of McClellan, should have no difficulty parsing the facts of the history of the bush administration with an eye to the truth. There are way too many corroborated, anecdotal truths revealed time after time that your only defense in ignoring them is that your good head was too buried in impenetrable sand to notice. Does the evisceration of every single administration critic not ring a bell? We play this game again and again. They try to subvert the dialog with shit like "not the Scotty we knew". All in unison.
The world is in a state of tumult and chaos in no small part due to the efforts of these nihilistic people. How else can you explain the course this country has charted. What vision of the future could you point to to illustrate the ideology of these creatures? Does it make any sense to thinking people? bush seems to me a politically savvy player who cannot think beyond getting to first base; he is in way over his head. cheney is inexplicable beyond a defining hatred (his bad heart? a lesbian daughter? waking up beside the unmentionable lynne?); who knows. their objectives are too rarified to contemplate; but their methodology is obvious. They do not convince with the gospel of a good people. They inculcate with facile lies repeated over and over by loyal minions. Too many of us choose to listen.
The diminution of the substantive credibility of the United States in eight short years is astonishing. Think about it.
Posted by: Marcus Santora | May 29, 2008 11:03:52 PM
Why does someone's purported sexuality always become an issue to (obstensibly) discredit him/her? How relevant is what McClellan does with his willy or anyone else's to the central point of this story? If sexuality must be invoked, how about this: It took him a while--no one is claiming that McClennan is smart--to realize that BushCo fucked him over for almost 4 years by exploiting his loyalty and true-believer status; sure he was a willing tool, in more ways than one, but that shouldn't detract from the essential truthfulness of his book. Gay, straight, Kinsey 3--who gives a shit?
Posted by: Keller | May 30, 2008 12:49:18 PM
Hmmm...
Disgruntled employee writes a book after he is one of the only employees so incompetent that even the President faulted for being too loyal had to can his pathetic ass, thousands of mouth-breathing, hate-filled liberals rush to buy his book which contradicts the well-known fact that Richard Armitage confessed he was the one who leaked Plame's name (who's lies are documented in the bipartisan, unanimous findings of the Senate Sellect Intelligence Committee Report, and who was never covert in the first place, hence Armitage's freedom) ...and how does this add up to liberals being anything but deranged, neurotic, delusional suckers again?
Posted by: On a Side Note... | Aug 10, 2008 7:41:46 AM
Hmmm...
Disgruntled employee writes a book after he is one of the only employees so incompetent that even the President faulted for being too loyal had to can his pathetic ass, thousands of mouth-breathing, hate-filled liberals rush to buy his book which contradicts the well-known fact that Richard Armitage confessed he was the one who leaked Plame's name (who's lies are documented in the bipartisan, unanimous findings of the Senate Sellect Intelligence Committee Report, and who was never covert in the first place, hence Armitage's freedom) ...and how does this add up to liberals being anything but deranged, neurotic, delusional suckers again?
Posted by: On a Side Note... | Aug 10, 2008 7:42:36 AM
Hmmm...
Disgruntled employee writes a book after he is one of the only employees so incompetent that even the President faulted for being too loyal had to can his pathetic ass, thousands of mouth-breathing, hate-filled liberals rush to buy his book which contradicts the well-known fact that Richard Armitage confessed he was the one who leaked Plame's name (who's lies are documented in the bipartisan, unanimous findings of the Senate Sellect Intelligence Committee Report, and who was never covert in the first place, hence Armitage's freedom) ...and how does this add up to liberals being anything but deranged, neurotic, delusional suckers again?
Posted by: On a Side Note... | Aug 10, 2008 7:42:46 AM
Hmmm...
Disgruntled employee writes a book after he is one of the only employees so incompetent that even the President faulted for being too loyal had to can his pathetic ass, thousands of mouth-breathing, hate-filled liberals rush to buy his book which contradicts the well-known fact that Richard Armitage confessed he was the one who leaked Plame's name (who's lies are documented in the bipartisan, unanimous findings of the Senate Sellect Intelligence Committee Report, and who was never covert in the first place, hence Armitage's freedom) ...and how does this add up to liberals being anything but deranged, neurotic, delusional suckers again?
Posted by: On a Side Note... | Aug 10, 2008 7:42:59 AM