Posted under Politics
Watch it, Scott McClellan – you don’t mess with Bob Dole:
In the e-mail, Dole basically describes the former White House press secretary as a traitor looking to cash in on the “liberal” media’s distaste for President Bush.
“There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues,” the five-term Kansas senator wrote to McClellan. “No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.”
And this story suggests McClellan couldn’t help but betray Bush — after all, he came from traitorous stock.
But the more I think about this, the less I think he wrote it out of petty revenge for being fired. The book’s title says a lot: What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. I think McClellan has three goals here. First, he wants to warn the American people about the real quagmire we’re facing — no, not Iraq, but Washington DC itself. It’s a snakepit, a fever-swamp of illusion and bluff addicted to power, getting it and keeping it. As ugly as it can be, it’s overwhelmingly seductive. Good men with good intentions can be warped out of recognizability here.
And that leads to goal number two: to explain to himself, the world, and to George W. Bush what happened to a good man with good intentions inside the District of Corruption. McClellan had served Bush back in Texas, and grew increasingly uneasy with the allure unlimited power holds for some men and the depravity it can lead them to. He saw what he believed to be a decent man get swept away by that greatest of temptations after 9/11, which led Bush to launch a wave of destruction on an innocent nation, then try to cover it up with what McClellan called “obfuscation” and “propaganda.” After the Plame scandal, McClellan could take no more.
Finally, I think he’s trying to warn us not to let another cycle of hyped and cropped data lead to another unnecessary war in Iran. Bush, desperate to leave a legacy as a successful war president, may see a surgical strike on Iran as his last chance to knock out a threat to Israel and US hegemony in the Middle East. McClellan, apparently no blinkered ideologue, now realizes how power and ideology can blind one to unforseen consequences — and even blind some men to forseeable consequences. Guilty of helping justify one wrongful aggression, McClellan couldn’t sit back and let another one lead us to an even more horrible level of destruction and future problems.
roho on 31 May 2008 at 3:41 am #
McClellan is most likely in the same boat as Colin Powell?……..”How does it feel to be used”?
I have no sympathy for Bob Dole. (I don’t track and reference to everything I read, but still remember it.)……….Dole disapointed me as a typical GOP cultist. After leaving the Senate, he joined one of the LARGEST lobbying firms on “K” Street, and quickly started working with the Russians. Some Russian criminal that was the Bill Gates of “Aluminum” in Russia, had been refused a visa to America for years! But, being a former Senator and GOP Capitalist, DOLE pulled strings and got him in………Dole is “Full Speed Ahead” on the Globilist Fast Track, and influence peddling.(A natural voice for the New World Order Damage Control Program).
The Globalist need to discredit McClellan fast!……..And make him look like a disinfranchised employee instead of a whistleblower! (It aint easy to find out that you actually work for Dick Chenney, and “Dubya” ain’t nothing but a walking microphone!”
I will buy his book and recognize that he now realizes that he was a pawn in a very big scam.
csason on 31 May 2008 at 9:30 pm #
“which led Bush to launch a wave of destruction on an innocent nation, then try to cover it up with what McClellan called “obfuscation†and “propaganda.—
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly…not to mention attacking Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, also.
roho on 01 Jun 2008 at 12:09 am #
Patrick Buchanan has a great article up on the legassy of “Dubya”?
Chenney has failed him!….And yes, he is irrelevant!…..It clearly shows that the Middleast is negotiating dailey without “Dubya” getting an invitation!
Perhaps his big 100,000 acre ranch in Paraguay will be his sanctuary from the “Haig” when all of the information comes in?
What an absolute embarassment for the U.S. Citizen!
His legassy will be the King of Saudi Arabia saying, “Go home little rich boy, and no we will not increase our oil production!”
levotb on 01 Jun 2008 at 6:39 am #
I for one am NOT conviced–nor will I ever be after watching this man (GW Bush) since 2000–that he was “a good man with good intentions”. He started the Iraq war to “finish” what Colin Powell discouraged HW Bush from completing in ’91. He lied to the American people time and time again. He’s more than a lame duck. But he was NEVER “a good man with good intentions”. As an Indy con, I can never see Bush in that light. Perhaps Harrison knows something I don’t know.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 01 Jun 2008 at 1:57 pm #
I suppose I should have been clearer. I believe McClellan views Bush as a man who went to DC with good intentions. I certainly don’t.
BTW, this seems to confirm the argument that McClellan wants to warn the world that Bush still intends to attack Iran:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=58111§ionid=351020101
C Bowen on 02 Jun 2008 at 12:13 pm #
From the conservative perspective and the Republican Party, loyalty to institution, and loyalty to friends are part of Virtue–which leads to two things–how did McCain whose claim to fame not 8 years ago was party disloyalty, and if McClellan is trying to throw a monkey wrench at messing with Iran, then he needs to come out and say it and claim virtue, as someone trying to help a friend.
Patroon on 02 Jun 2008 at 1:37 pm #
I yawn in the face “Hurricane Bob”. He’s the last person who should be whoring himself for the Bush family, who has humiliated him on any number of occasions. It’s sad to see a once good man become a prostitute but Viagra will do that to you.
McClellan is simply comfirming what others who have become disillusioned with the Bush II have written in their books or have said in post-White House employment interviews. David Kuo, John DiUllio, Paul O’Neill, Matthew Dowd, Matthew Gerson, even David Frum for that matter, have said similar things.
What’s different is that McClellan is the first Texan, the first true believer, to have his innocence lost and that’s what makes him a target. The home-state crowd isn’t supposed to stick the knife into the back of his patron. It would be like Jody Powell ripping Jimmy Carter or Ed Meese blasting Ronald Reagan. Hell, even Webb Hubbell went down with the S.S. Clinton.