Bush Front Man Takes It All Back

By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services on Jun 1, 2008

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WASHINGTON -- Here's what President Bush's press secretary had to say about the latest former administration official to write a book that is sharply critical of the Bush White House:

"Ask yourself why, one and a half years later, after he left the administration, he's all of a sudden coming forward with these grave concerns," the press secretary said. "If he had such grave concerns, why didn't he come out with them sooner?"

No, that was not Bush's current press secretary, Dana Perino, talking about former press secretary Scott McClellan's new tell-all book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

No, the former press secretary quoted above is McClellan in a March 2004 news conference. He was responding to another book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," by Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism advisor.

History repeats itself in ironic ways in Washington. Clarke's book charged that the Bush administration failed to take timely action against al-Qaida during the elevated threat period before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It criticizes the war in Iraq as a hindrance and distraction from the real war against terror. It sounds, in short, a lot like McClellan's book.

And McClellan's reaction to Clark's book sounded a lot like Perino's recent reaction to McClellan's work.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," said Perino, oozing sympathy as one would for an addled uncle locked in the attic.

"Disgruntled?" When, one might wonder, did he lose his gruntle and what made him lose it? Keep wondering. The press secretaries, spin doctors, power trippers and snow jobbers in the administration's communications wing essentially have two jobs: One is to make sure that we in the media do not receive straight answers to our questions. The other is to discredit critics of the administration.

That's why Karl Rove, Bush's former chief political advisor, thought he was actually insulting McClellan when the political guru said the former administration mouthpiece "sounds like a left-wing blogger." In Karl's mind, that's tantamount to a member of the church choir who ran off with a heathen.

"This doesn't sound like Scott. It really doesn't," said Rove.

No, I'm sure it doesn't. The old Scott had learned to stand up, keep the secrets and spread the bulljive as well as the rest of the gang. The old Scott was the administration's media face from mid-2003 to early 2006. He often appeared to be in over his head, like a hapless kid on the playground who becomes everyone else's punching bag. Yet he stood. The Iraq war turned sour. The ugly questions came raining in with new ferocity. Yet he stood dutifully like a captain who would not budge from the deck of the sinking ship that was taking him down.

On CSPAN, after watching a tape of himself attacking Clarke, the new McClellan described his old self as "caught up in the bubble" of "the permanent campaign" where "you lose perspective" and strategy becomes more important than uncomfortable facts or accountability to the public. Those are major themes in his book. It describes how Bush and his senior aides abandoned "candor and honesty" to wage a "political propaganda campaign" that led the nation into an "unnecessary war."

He also writes that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove "had at best misled" him about their role in the leak that disclosed the CIA identity of Valerie Plame Wilson. McClellan also admits that he presented information to the White House press corps that was "badly misguided." If Bush's low approval ratings are an indication, McClellan's disclosures are not big news to most Americans. What's new is who's saying it.

McClellan has apologized to Clarke, both men have said in interviews, and Clarke accepted the apology. That's good for starters. But McClellan has a lot more people to whom he should say, "I'm sorry."

"Where's the apology?" asks David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine. Corn first broke the significance of Plame's outing, among other administration deceptions. Corn took a lot of criticism from the political right. So did every other journalist who questioned the Bush propaganda line. Now Corn writes in his blog that if McClellan is truly contrite, he should pledge his book's profits to "charities that support the families of American soldiers killed or injured in Iraq."

That's an excellent idea -- and it came from a left-wing blogger, Karl.

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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.