{"id":15693,"date":"2008-05-29T10:35:36","date_gmt":"2008-05-29T14:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15693.html"},"modified":"2008-05-29T10:35:36","modified_gmt":"2008-05-29T14:35:36","slug":"mcclellan-says-his-loyalty-to-the-truth-trumps-loyalty-to-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mcclellan-says-his-loyalty-to-the-truth-trumps-loyalty-to-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"McClellan says his ‘loyalty to the truth’ trumps loyalty to Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

The White House response to Scott McClellan’s new book has been less than subtle<\/a>. The Bush gang is livid, and in some ways, is trashing McClellan harder<\/i> than they would a Democratic critic, because McClellan’s criticism is perceived as a “betrayal.”<\/p>\n

For his part, McClellan took to the airwaves this morning to defend his work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, speaking out for the first time since publication of his searing memoir, told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday that he erroneously believed what President Bush was saying about the war but now is answering a higher loyalty: “a loyalty to the truth.” <\/p>\n

“The White House would prefer that I not talk openly about my experiences,” he said in a lengthy, at time combative interview with anchor Meredith Viera. “These words didn’t come to me easy…. I’m disappointed that things didn’t turn out the way we all hoped they would.” <\/p>\n

He added: “I have a higher loyalty than my loyalty necessary to my past work. That’s a loyalty to the truth.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McClellan added, “There’s no one I’m harder on in the book, I don’t think, than myself.” <\/p>\n

I have not yet read the book, so I have no idea if that’s true, but I’d like to hear more about McClellan’s perspective on his own work. All of the media reports I’ve seen point to his harsh analysis of practically everyone in the Bush White House, including the president and vice president. But most of the loyal Bushies have been asking, “Why didn’t Scott speak up before?” and they’re not wrong to ask.<\/p>\n

McClellan said this morning his mission had been to write “openly and honestly about what I lived and learned.”<\/p>\n

That sounds quite noble, but in McClellan’s case, it’s unfulfilling. Why wasn’t his mission to speak<\/i> “openly and honestly” while he was the White House press secretary?
\n
\nTo hear McClellan tell it, he needed time and perspective<\/a> to come to grips with that he’d seen.<\/p>\n

McClellan, in turn, said it took him some time after leaving the White House to come to terms with his experience there. When the Iraq war started, “my beliefs were different,” he told “Today.” “I trusted the president’s foreign policy team and I believed the president when he talked about the great and gathering danger from Iraq. I believe the president believed it too. He had convinced himself.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think this is a book that I could have written two years ago,” McClellan added. “[I] struggled as I went through this book process. I struggled to come to grips with how things went so badly off course.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps. It’s certainly possible that McClellan was stuck in The Bubble, and couldn’t appreciate how badly the White House functioned until there was some distance between himself and the team he represented.<\/p>\n

But it’s hardly persuasive. He was there, he saw the Bush gang’s ridiculous behavior and judgment, and he went out to the podium every day to tell us not to believe our lying eyes. I’m glad McClellan wrote the book — by all appearances, it’s an important perspective for the historical record — but he won’t exactly win a “Profile in Courage” award for waiting to come clean.<\/p>\n

The general response to McClellan’s change of heart can more or less be summarized in four words: “Now he tells us.”<\/p>\n

Post Script<\/i>: I’d just add that McClellan seems anxious to burn the bridge behind him. He not only trashes the Bush gang in his book, but he did NBC’s “Today” show this morning; he’ll do MSNBC’s “Coundown with Keith Olbermann” tonight; and he’ll do NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. All of this, of course, comes just a week after White House officials suggested Republicans should no longer appear on NBC or MSNBC. His choice of venues, in other words, is twisting the metaphorical knife, just a little.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The White House response to Scott McClellan’s new book has been less than subtle. The Bush gang is livid, and in some ways, is trashing McClellan harder than they would a Democratic critic, because McClellan’s criticism is perceived as a “betrayal.” For his part, McClellan took to the airwaves this morning to defend his work. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}