Wow, Scotty is really throwing his old boss under the bus in his new book! Basically, it sounds like he's confirming what many of us have known all along: Bush lied about the reasons for the war, Rove and Libby were behind the Plame affair, and Cheney is really running the show.

I think Scotty better watch his back and have a food tester for a while . . .

Link

All he's doing is telling the truth.

For a change!

Yeah, they're already starting up about him.

Nothing surprising. Just confirms a lot of what many of us already suspected or knew.
I just wish he had spoke out sooner.

Do you plan on reading the book?

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Dont go through life,
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Real eyes...realize...real lies.

It will be interesting to see if he gets any blowback from the likes of Chris Matthews for this:

"If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

He'll be interviewed by a good number of the "liberal media" and I'm wondering how many of them will fess up to his IMO factual conclusion that without the complicity of the press the invasion of Iraq might not have happened.

Scott McClellan on the "liberal media" - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

I am very glad that McClellan wrote the book, but I do not plan to buy it. Better to have spoken out when it might have made a difference.

The New York Times apologized 2 years ago for being nothing other than stenographers. No other member of the media, that I am aware of, has done so.

If I can get it from the library, I will. I'm not putting any extra money in his pocket, though!

I haven't read the book, so I really can't comment on it. Obviously those of you who have talked about it, are just going by what the media is writing about it. From what I've read via newspapers and internet, he sounds like a disgruntled employee who wants to make a name for himself and make himself some $$ before President Bush is out of office.

You know, that could very well be true but that doesn't necessarily mean what he wrote isn't based on fact.

I'm #23 on my library's hold list so it will be a while before I get to read it.

Funny, that's exactly what the White House said -- disgruntled employee. It's almost like you read it somewhere.

There's an awful lot of "disgruntled" employees leaving the Bush administration, aren't there?

Nope, didn't 'read' it somewhere. That's the first thing I thought when I heard it on the news this morning. There's a lot of 'disgruntled' employees everywhere. As for the Bush administration and some employees leaving, I would think after working 8 years for any president, there has to come a time to leave. You basically have no family time, no down time when you work for any president. There has been employees leaving presidents in every administration. So just because some have left the Bush administration, don't put in words where they don't belong and speculate.

So, she can't speculate, but you can?

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Dont go through life,
GROW through life

Real eyes...realize...real lies.

That's right. I can speculate and she can't!

Here's the answer to something that I have long wondered about (I did know that it was part of the reasoning), why we are in Iraq:

"In Iraq, McClellan added, Bush saw "his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness," something McClellan said Bush has said he believes is only available to wartime presidents.

The president's real motivation for the war, he said, was to transform the Middle East to ensure an enduring peace in the region. But the White House effort to sell the war as necessary due to the stated threat posed by Saddam Hussein was needed because "Bush and his advisers knew that the American people would almost certainly not support a war launched primarily for the ambitions purpose of transforming the Middle East," McClellan wrote."

Bush misled U.S. on Iraq, former aide says in new book | ajc.com

Scotty didn't work anywhere remotely near 8 years for George Bush. It was three.

Oh, I'll leave that to you. Since I don't see where I "put in words where they don't belong," I don't even know what you're talking about.

I didn't say Scotty, as you call him, was there 8 years. I said working 8 years for any president. So what if it was 3. So what? I don't know why you and others are making such a big deal out of my first post on this thread. I made my point (which didn't agree with you and others which I'm sure is the reason) and now I don't even know what YOU'RE making a big deal of!!

I believe it's called nit-picking! (Look it up, as I'm sure you'll be giving us a definition!)

while I freely admit I have not followed the story closely; But, why would he be disgruntled? Is there a known reason why he would be disgruntled? Did he quit or was he fired?

I don't know...I'm just curious.

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I haven't been following it either, but, I did see the segment on the news tonight, about it, and they said he was basically "fired".

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

You're funny.

Author Mickey Herskowitz said this about G.W. Bush: Sound a bit in line to what McClellan said.

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Dont go through life,
GROW through life

Real eyes...realize...real lies.

Hey mom2twins2,

I looked up nit-picking and truble2301's name was there! Imagine that! lol JUST KIDDING FOLKS. Who knows what to believe when an employee writes a book after he lives the employment. I'm sure there's some truth in there but I certainly would't buy the whole thing. And I also heard on tv that he may be a disgruntled employee. ANd hey, writing a Bush hating book will put money in his pockets.

At some point, Scott McClellen lied. In all the clips I saw on CNN a bit ago, he was nothing but wonderful towards Bush. If things were so bad, why didn't he speak up then? I don't get it. Nothing I've heard, which isn't a lot, I admit, speaks well of his character. Either he lied to us when he was saying everything was hunky dorey, or he's lying now. Can't have it both ways. I have no feelings about it one way or the other at this point. Just pointing things the way I see them.

Melissa

Just to clear up the "nit-picking" fact

"McClellan served as Governor Bush's traveling press secretary during the 2000 Presidential election. McClellan became White House Deputy Press Secretary in 2003.
McClellan announced his resignation as Press Secretary on April 19, 2006. Many newspapers at the time reported that McClellan was forced to resign due to the Valerie Plame issue and handling of Hurricane Katrina relief."

I'm pretty sure that McClellan was asked to leave, but I remember him saing about Plame, "We won't comment on an ongoing investigation." He said it over and over again. When Tony Snow took over, he said the exact same over and over again.

McClellan fired over Katrina? I guess they needed another scapegoat.

What did you clear up, exactly? Three years Scotty lasted. Exactly what I said.

You're funny.

Thank you! lol

One of the commentators syeterday said that there will be a full scale investigation in the fall and that in the nexct year many more books will be written. Going to be interesting to find out what all comes out.

(Forgive the spelling)

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I don't know if he lied now or then. Here's my take on it--when he was involved he was going on the information he had, and then new information came to light.

The example that keeps popping into mind is if you were to agree to allow your teenage daughter to borrow the car for a Friday night because you were led to believe she wanted to go to the local football game. Then EARLY Saturday morning you get a call from the police department in another city/state, because your child loaded up all her friends and went to a concert, and ended up being involved in a motor vehicle accident.
Now, you as a parent, would have NEVER agreed to let your child take the car if you had known all the facts. (I'm going on that assumption), but you did allow them to borrow the car--and now you have the "mess" left from that one incident. As a parent you can either: 1) deal w/ the situation and give consequences for your child's behaviour, 2) you ignore the fact that you were lied to/misled and allow yoru child to borrow the car the NEXT weekend...

I don't know what ACTUALLY happened...and none us may ever know the "truth".

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

You're funny.

Oh no! Larry (wide stance) Craig is writing a tell all book. Wonder who would buy that one.

I'd bet money he's not going to "tell all," IYKWIM!

Has anyone else noticed that administration supporters really haven't challenged the information in McClellan's book. Yesterday supporters were saying "he doesn't sound like the Scotty I knew"today I'm hearing comments that his publisher made him do it and it's all about the money. Curious. Also heard that Henry Waxman is going to ask that he testify in front of a committee about information in the book.

What I find interesting is the absolutely conformity in the language by people like Perino, Ari Fleischer, Rove, etc. They're "confused," McClellan was "disgruntled," and it's "not the Scott we knew."

Absolutely lockstep.

I do know that while Bush was campaigning in 1999, he told a reporter that he would invade Iraq if he got a chance. Also, when Clinton was briefing Bush in 2000, Clinton told him that Al Qaeda was the biggest threat facing this country. Bush said he thought it was Iraq. I've read PNAC and every time Bush threatens another country, it's one of the ones that was on that list. I know that transforming the Middle East was a primary goal of PNAC, (empire by another name) But to think that the only reason to take this country to war was so that Bush would be remembered as a "war president" is beyond belief.

The only other revelation so far was that it was Bush himself who gave Libby permission to leak Plame's name. I thought it was Cheney.

What does this have to do with the candidates and issues for the election this board is for?

cpsfsisooi

Read the board description.

Go ahead and start laughing, same as Michelle Malkin.

cpsfsisooi

You're funny.

Marilyn, while I get your analogy, I think it could be extended even further. Perhaps if the faulty intel had not been presented to the White House, they would not have pursued war, but given what they knew, they made the decisions they did.

I recall the feeling I personally had at the end of our first conflict with Iraq after they invaded Kuwait. I remember being frustrated that we didn't take S.H. out of power then. It made no sense to me because it was obvious that we had the power and the capability necessary to do just that. But I came to understand that taking out S.H. wasn't the mission. Liberating Kuwait was the mission.

And yet, I believe there was a lot of sentiment for the position I felt was right in my gut - that we should've gotten rid of him when we had the chance.

The cease fire agreement had a list of stipulations to which Iraq was to adhere. They weren't. They simply weren't. The UN should've seen to it that the food that was being sent to them in exchange for oil was actually going TO the Iraqi people and not being traded off to France for cash so S.H. could build more palaces. They should have insisted that S.H. comply with the verification of destruction of known long-range weapons. They should've followed through with verification of his destruction of WMD-making materials.

I understand that the terrorists that were responsible for 9-11 were not from Iraq. I also realize that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Middle Eastern region is crawling with terrorists from many countries that are sympathetic to the causes of Bin Laden. Even today, despite a political climate that says otherwise, I am not convinced it was folly to hold the perspective that Iraq was a powderkeg about to explode. We were already a nation that had a long and pointed memory of our *not* having finished the job - or at least, what we perceived the job should have been - the first time. Add in all those other violations and I can see why an invasion didn't seem an entirely wrong choice to make.

My understanding about the S.M. book is that one of his biggest accusations is that the Bush admin. treated the war as something that needed sold much like any political policy, and he believed that to be an inappropriate method of making the case, as though it violated a personal principle of his. That's an argument I might buy, except that it's purely opinion *and* it would seem that if he was that strongly principled he would've quit, rather than left after a forced res.

Personally, Ari was my fave.

The decision to go to war was made before any intelligence had been reviewed by the current administration. Douglas Feith was the one, under Dick Cheney's direction, that produced the phony intelligence. Our intelligence had produced a white paper on Iraq which explicitly stated that Saddam had abandoned his nuclear ambitions. Only 7 congressmen bothered to read it before voting to attack Iraq.

For those who say that the whole world believed that Saddam had WMD, I would like to remind you that UN weapons were on the ground in Iraq. The only thing that they found were a few prohibited missles which were in the process of being dismantled.

Iraq was no threat to us. And because Bush wanted to be a "war president", over a million Iraqis have died.

I was watching him tonight and he said that Bush told him that he had okayed the outing of Valerie Plame. He went on to talk about testifying before some committee but the interviewer never asked about whether the Bush statement came up, which I found curious. If he testified about the Joe Wilson thing and knew that Bush had been okay with the outing of Plame, shouldn't that have come out in his testimony? Maybe I misunderstood the sequence of events they were discussing. But if not, then it's possible that he lied to the committee or they didn't ask the right questions?

I was flipping between Anderson Cooper and Keith Olberman so I am not sure which show it came up on. Did anyone else watch and pick up on what was said about Bush and Plame?

I heard what you did. However, I also heard Mclellan state that he did not think that Bush was in on the plan to out Valerie Plame. So, I read the transcript. I think it was this comment that I found confusing:

"As I left the White House, my last 10 months became a period of disillusionment, beginning with the Rove revelations that he had been involved in the leak episode, and ending with the revelation that the president authorized the secret leaking of the National Intelligence Estimate, or at least parts of it. And so, I was becoming more disillusioned." McClellan stands by barnburner book - Countdown with Keith Olbermann - MSNBC.com

Mclelland had earlier referred to Bush authorizing the leaking of certain information from the NIE to help make a case for war. Rereading this, I do not think that Bush authorized the Plame leak.

Jon Stewart's interview:

Scott McClellan Pt.1 | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

Scott McClellan Pt. 2 | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

I too was puzzled when I first heard his remarks about the leak. I think what he meant was that Bush authorized the NIE leak in the hope of discrediting Joe Wilson's opinion piece in the NYT(?) in which Wilson discredited the Nigeria yellow cake uranium to Iraq theory. From there members of the administration felt free to out Ms. Plame to further discredit/harm Wilson.

Edited to add: I could be totally off the mark with this theory but my excuse is my computer won't allow me to go to all the links posted (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!).

Bush authorized the leaking of parts of the NIE to make his case for war. What they did leak left out assessments that the information was extremely dubious. Most of it came from "Curveball". None of our agencies ever interviewed him. David Kay was the first to do so and that was well after we had invaded.

They outed Valerie Plame to "discredit" her husband's editorial which irrefutably negated Bush's claim.