K-Lo may not have read the book, but she has no doubt that it must be really bad. And its author is dishonest and dishonorable to boot. He must be, because, you know, he is insufficiently disrespectful of George W. Bush, the Greatest President Republicans Have Ever Known:
I’m confused about Scott McClellan’s book. Without having read it, I think a couple of observations are nonetheless fair. What does it tell us when a White House insider gets outside and says that all those other people he used to work with are incompetent liars. If, as McClellan claims, the president made a “propaganda campaign” of the Iraq war, why didn’t Scotty say something at the time? Why wait until he’s out of the job to do the honorable thing? What kind of person continues to speak for (and cover up) a dishonest campaign for war when he knows the truth to be something else? What kind of person later says, hey, know what? That whole time I was working for the president? I thought he was a dishonest dolt, but I did it anyway . . . because…? Wait, because you were collecting material for a book? I’ll tell you what kind of person does that: Someone who is either dishonest or dishonorable — or both.
This is the first of EIGHT posts about Scott McClellan, the former White House Press Secretary, by the NRO editor. I mention this to remind the good folks at National Review that it is this sort of emotional knee-jerk defense – or in this case, counterattack – that is why National Review is generally considered to be in the bag for Bush and therefore part of conservatism’s current problem rather than part of any prospective solution.
Whether Scott is right or wrong, we may never know. But why should we believe him now when, with the same straight face he offered as press secretary, he says we shouldn’t have believed him then.
I marvel at the fact that anyone could be surprised at an employee’s failure to speak his mind when he thinks his boss is a dishonest idiot doing the wrong thing. Has K-Lo never read Dilbert? Government employees aren’t exactly samurai, and while they are known for many things, honor and truthfulness are not two of them. The reason we should at least consider believing him now is because NOW HE IS NOT BEING PAID IN ORDER TO MANIPULATE PUBLIC OPINION.
You would think that a member of the professional media would know what a press secretary’s responsibilities entail.
UPDATE – Unfortunately, VDH elects to join the choir of the disingenuous Bush defenders:
But if all of the above were true, why in the world would McClellan have stayed on in 2004? So it is either: (1) I didn’t like the message of 2004, but did like my job that the new message provided?, or (2) Only now when promoting a book attacking my former employer do I realize that I was ‘blinded by the right,’ and in fact my idealism of 2000 was betrayed by the realities of 2004? In the former case, he is a dead soul; in the latter, a simple huckster.
Given that pretty much all PR flacks are soulless hucksters, by definition, how does this “logic” call into question the accuracy of McClellan’s charges. Methinks the ladies are protesting far too much.