Why McClellan's Coming Clean Is Important
Last week, partisans from both sides of the aisle seemed to suggest that Scott McClellan's new tell all book was insignificant and somehow did not speak well of the man. From the Right, the talking points went out and we heard things from "puzzled" to much worse in Senator Dole's comments: "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. 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." Rather talking about the issues raised in the book, the attack machine pointed the barrels at their former native son.
On the Left, the general criticism was "too little, too late" questioning why he didn't speak up during his years in the White House when it could have done some good. These criticisms are fair, but we ought not look a gift horse in the mouth. I agree with Jim Ramelis that there's very little new in what the former Press Secretary said (http://www.crossleft.org/node/6252), but I do believe the fact of who was discrediting the warmaking enterprise is extremely important.
Our project must be to completely discredit the Bush administration and the senseless and frankly evil mindset that chooses war over diplomacy, that twists intelligence and the public perception about the threat, that uses the threat of terrorism for partisanship and political gain. As I have said before, I believe we will look back on these times and find them similar to the McCarthy era, saying to ourselves, "How could we let our leaders scare us into something that was clearly wrong?"
So books like McClellan's or Richard Clarke's that expose the administration for the lying and the preference towards violence are extremely important. A former insider disavowing himself and essentially saying that he too was guilty, is far from inconsequential. As the stories pile up, they write the terrible history of this administration and remind Americans about what where we do not want to return: neoconservativism and leaders that use fear and division to run our great country.
I know I'm probably in the minority on this, but I thank Scott McClellan for having the guts to come clean making his contribution to writing a page of history. As Christians we believe no one is beyond redemption and my hope is that others in the Bush White House now realize the errors of their ways and follow McClellan's lead. They would do our nation a great service and give their souls a bit more peace.
- Stephen Rockwell's blog
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Liberal publisher
I doubt McClellan could have gotten any publisher he wanted due to the fact that if he could have, surely he would have chosen one that was not so tied to the liberal agenda. A middle of the road or even right leaning publisher would have given his allegations more weight. A liberal publisher just seems to be looking for someone that they can buy off to say what they want to say. Much in the same way that Gary suggested by offering several million dollars for evidence. For that reason alone, a center or right publisher would have been better.
Attacking the money trail is pertinent to the conversation in the same way it is when talking about the MSM and the major corporations that own them. Motivation is always part of any discussion or debate of the actions of players, and money provides motivation in many cases. Whether it did in this case or not is hard to tell. It is not a diversion. Besides, we have talked about all that other stuff before.
Ben
Ben, I Was Not Suggesting a Bribe or Buy Off
Ben, I am as serious as a heart attack about offering reward money to anyone who can produce EVIDENCE that could be used for indicting and convicting anyone in the Bush administration for crimes committed. I am not suggesting that anyone be bribed or bought off to manufacture bogus evidence or to make unsubstantiated spurious claims or allegations.
As you know, law enforcement has commonly used reward money to gain evidence and testimony for convicting criminals. I am not suggesting anything illegal, unethical or immoral to be done in the way of gathering evidence. I am simply advocating for there to be a financial incentive made available to those in the know who can produce tangible, usable evidence to the Department of Justice. Scott McClellan was not in the inner circle of decision making. He was simply a mouthpiece for the liars and suspected felons in charge. It seems he was duped as well.
The Bush administration has violated many laws with impunity. Outing a CIA operative is more than a misdemeanor and this seems to have come from the President's desk. Disregarding federal laws about wiretaps (FISA) is more than a misdemeanor and the President lied about doing that and later admitted it. Surely, manipulating evidence for the sake of initiating an unnecessary war is against the law. Didn't he take an oath on the Bible to uphold the laws of the land? Isn't it a type of perjury to take that oath and then lie about violating the very laws he was sworn to uphold?
This has been the most destructive and secretive administration in history with no one being held accountable other than Scooter Libby whom the President let off the hook after his conviction. As long as Bush is willing to intervene with commutations of sentences and possible pardons, no one has to fear legal consequences for covering up crime.
Yes, I contend whole heartedly for reward money to be offered for genuine whistle blowers to come forth and produce the evidence that supports what most people suspect...a gang of pirates have stolen our government and robbed our treasury and have violated a slew of laws in the process.
Rewards
Yes, LE uses rewards as motivation for people coming forward. But putting an open offer of several million dollars for someone to come forward with hard evidence that could be used against W seems to be asking for manufactured evidence to be presented. Does Dan Rather come to mind? and there was not even an open offer there (that we know of) but the manufactured evidence still presented itself.
Ben
More Rewards
Ben, rewards are meant for hard evidence that will stand up to scrutiny, not for manufactured evidence.
Re: Dan Rather -- none of the information contained in the disputed documents has been shown to be wrong. All the argument has been about the documents, not the otherwise well-established information about Bush's defective Air National Guard record.
There are some rewards that have been offered that no defenders of Bush have yet responded to.
$1,000 was offered in 2000 by a group of Alabama veterans to anyone with proof that Bush actually served in Alabama.
$10,000 was offered in 2004 by the Doonesbury cartoonist, Gary Trudeau, to anyone who had personally witnessed Bush reporting for drills in Alabama in 1972. (He referred to himself as an "investigative cartoonist".)
$50,000 was offered in late 2004 by "Texans for Truth" to anyone who could prove by first-hand, eye-witness testimony or by authentic documentary evidence that Bush had fulfilled his service requirements.
No claimants yet.
And Rather is suing CBS for making him a scapegoat for their failure to conduct a proper investigation of the documents in question -- and that they scapegoated him for the sake of their own pro-Bush political agenda and to placate the Bush administration. The controversy over the documents conveniently diverted the focus away from Bush's military record, about which Rather's story was basically correct.
Bill
what's the point?
Ben,
What's the point? There's a liberal publisher...McClellan is going to make money off the book. Is that the evil or are the acts of Bush and his administration evil?
Why complain about the speck in McClellan's eye when the wood beam is certainly in the eye of the administration.
The point is its yet another former Bushie coming out to tell the truth about the evils of the administration.
it's the grind...
Steve, it's the size of the grain of salt you take while reading his book, THAT'S the point.
And who are we to be talking about specks and wood beams anyway? Not MY job to measure those. Besides which, the topic is Scott McClellan (I think) and not the Bush administration.
actuallly the topic of McClellan's book IS Bush
I think you are missing something here Janet. This discussion is about the content of Scott McClellan's book and his coming clean. That certainly was the topic of my blog post that led of this discussion.
His book is an indictment of the Bush administration and many conservatives are trying to find other points to debate rather than the actual content of the book. Few are debating whether Bush led the country into war using the campaign machine, or that intelligence was twisted, or that decisions were prematurely made, or that the war was a war of choice (all things in the book). Rather people bring up, "oh there's a liberal publisher" or "he's making money on the book" trying to attack McClellan rather than having the debate about the content of the book. If people don't want to take the book seriously, than the debate should be that the content is somehow not true, but the fact that it is true and searing indictment of the administration leaves conservatives nothing but the same old personal attacks that Bush has mastered throughout his political career.
McCllellan's book
Stephen,
Have I ever shied away from debating the evidence that led us to the war? It is my recollection that we have gone round and round on those points on more than one occasion, but if you want to do it again, I will be glad to do so. I was making a point about McClellan and his publisher because that is what is new. Everything he has said in the book has been said before. And unfortunately, he has not presented any new evidence to back his claims up.
Disclaimer: I have not read the book but have watched plenty of his interviews (how could you not?) and the statements above are based on what he has said is in the book during those interviews.
Have you seen an interview with Ari Fleischer? He certainly attacks the content of the book and not just McClellan as you suggest all conservatives are doing. Ari flat out says it is not true in the interviews I have seen from him.
It is funny because I think that if the administration was as dubious and evil as suggested by McClellan and the left, I doubt this or Clark's book would have ever came out. I think they would have used those sinister tactics and the political machine to ensure that Scott/Richard kept their mouth shut one way or the other.
furthermore the administration doesn't care
The administration seems to accept their own "evil-doing" as historical fact. They accepted a Senate report today that clearly demonstates the administration misused intelligence (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html).
The White House response: "I know this is another report, and I'm sure that they put a lot of considerable thought into it, but this is a subject that has been gone over many many, many times, and I don't know of anything that's particularly new in it," said spokeswoman Dana Perino, who said she had not yet read it.
acceptance?
It has been a while since I posted on this thread and I guess McClellan's 15 minutes is up now since I have not seen him on any news shows in the last week or so. But anyway, I am not sure the White House response is an acceptance of the historical facts. In fact, I think the White House is saying that we have seen all this before and blah blah blah it is another partisan report that we are not going to respond to.
I can't quite agree that that statement is an acceptance that they committed evil acts. Even the article you linked to has a quote from the leading republican on the committee saying that the democrats on the committee twisted what the committee actually discovered so that they could use it against the administration.
He said she said...somewhere in the middle is the truth.
Ben
Senate report confirmed truth
Hi Ben,
I believe that we can get to the truth in the matter and that it lies as an absolute and not somewhere in the middle. Truth is truth. People can have different perspectives on that truth, but investigations have been done to determine that truth.
The Senate report last week, that received absolutely no attention from the media. It confirmed for the historical record what countless other accounts have said. The truth was twisted to make the case for war. People lied and thousands have died as a result.
new evidence is eyewitness account
Ben,
You mention that McClellan doesn't present any new evidence. The new evidence is that its eyewitness account. The President selectively releasing intelligence to back his claim and to out Valerie Plame's identity to discredit Joe Wilson were already established. McClellan offers another confirming source.
You are right though that there isn't anything necessarily new in this book. The White House essentially accepted a Senate report I think the historical debate is essentially over. Bush is a failure and his administration has conducted itself in a terrible manner going to war pre-emptively, denying science on global warming, and preferring the rich over working people.
I'm confused by what you mean about what sinister tactics would have to be used to shut up McClellan or Clark? Short of murder or blackmail what could they do? Its clear that though they have acted in a sinister way and we have 4,000 service men and women who have died as a result of their terrible mistkes. If that's not sinister, I'm not sure what is.
McClellan's Publisher
Yes my first reaction to everything that McClellan said was "So what"?It had all been said before. I sent 'So What" out into the blogoshphere and into a few email circles and got a lot of feedback similar to Steve's, that who it is , is as important as what is said. I have been persuaded, it was important that McCellan said what he did.
As for McClellan's publisher being behind it all, come on Ben lets get real.We are talking about the former White Press Secretary. If McClellan chose a left wing publisher, it is becasue he wanted a left wing publisher. Scott had final say on anything printed in his name. We are not talking about a sweet innocent country boy from Texas who got duped by some fast talking liberals. We are talking about a former Bush administration insider who understands how the media and influence work
As far as following the money goes. I am sure MClellan wants to make a few bucks as does his publisher. When I wrote for my college newspaper way back when, as I was told "Dog bites man is not news, man bites dog, now that is big news". Applying that to the situation we are talking about, former Bush insider rips his old boss, now that is big news that is going sell.
Seriously...?
For several million I could come up with the evidence myself. I do not think that is such a good idea. Hopefully it was said tongue in cheek and not seriously. There would be a whole set of problems if that were done. Besides, I would not put it past Soros and his minions to have already tried that offer.
Oh wait, Soros, is there a connection between him and McClellan? Yes, I do believe there is. The publisher of McClellan's book is the same that has published Soros six or seven books. So maybe their trick of offering money is working. Too bad McClellan does not have hard evidence to back up his claims because he might have gotten the several million.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/05/29/mcclennans-publisher...
So following Jim's logic about corporations, specifically Big Oil, follow the money and you find the motivation of their actions. In McClellan's case, where did the money come from? A left of center publisher hell bent on tearing down the Bush Administration.
I do not suggest that everything in the book is a pack of lies as some on the right. I only suggest that it is slanted to make the administration look as bad as possible in the same manner the administration slanted evidence against Iraq to make it look as bad as possible. And that his statements should be weighed against the evidence, which most of the left has already concluded points to the fact that Bush lied 937 (is that the right number?) times.
It has been interesting though very predictable watching the pundits on both sides react to the book. I am not sure there is anyone out there that can give a truly unbiased review of the book since they (and we) all have our minds made up about the war already. I can certainly understand why neither side is really touting him as a hero and that makes me tend to believe at least he believes what he is saying. But then there is still the nasty problem of the money trail.
Ben
people get paid for books
Ben,
I know lots of people have a problem with McClellan making money, but I suppose that's the goal of any publishing house. There have been a multitude of tell alls from all kinds of folks in politics. I actually agree with MoveOn that McClellan ought to give a significant percentage if not all of his profit to a good cause, like ending the war he helped start.
Attacking the money trail is a diversion from the much more serious issues about lying to the country about intelligence and taking the country into an unneccessary war. McClellan is just one of a multitude of sources that have corroborated the President's choice of war before the facts came in, the fudging of intelligence, and the lack of self-awareness to admit any wrongdoing.
Conservatives are now not interested in defending the indefensible Bush administration(which is largely good), but there stills seems to be a subset who attack those willing to tell the truth and admit their own wrongdoing. Most folks see through the smokescreen of attacks these days. We know what was done was wrong, and we want change.
Excellent Assessment Steve
Steve, I fully concur with your commending McClellan for coming forward. In the same vein, I have hoped for years that someone on the Left would offer several million dollars as a reward for anyone within the Bush administration that would come forward with evidence that could lead to charges and convictions on any of the many crimes committed. Anybody got an extra million or two they want to throw in?