I have not yet read his book. I can't say that I will. I have not spent many hours since he left the job in 2006 thinking about Scott McClellan. Other than for the current news cycle, I can't say that I will spend much more.
But Scott McClellan is the current human representation of an issue that comes up from time to time, especially in the waning days of the Bush Administrations, when more than a few rats jump the ship. They either jump to another, "less tainted" faction of the Republican Party, and some jump off the bandwagon altogether. Maybe hoping for a job in the media, maybe hoping, as cynical careerists, that as the wind starts to blow in the Democratic direction they can get aboard as long as it's helpful to their ambition, or maybe they're just hoping to save their souls.
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But this current Scott McClellan flap has got me thinking, aided by the rerun of Anderson Cooper I have on in the background, where Ari Fleischer and Dana Perino (in a clip), are doing their solid for Mr. Bush and calling McClellan disgruntled, dishonest, and maybe even crazy.
It's significant enough that I'll call it my Scott McClellan Dilemma. At previous stages over the last 8 or so years, it could have been called the Michael "Brownie" Brown Dilemma, the Colin Powell Dilemma, or maybe even the Paul O'Niell Dilemma (can anyone even remember back that far anymore?).
Here's the rub.
I can't for the life of me, today or any other day, bring myself to defend Scott McClellan. McClellan is, at the moment, doing something "useful." Too little, too late, of course. But calling attention to the crimes and incompetence of the Bush Administration, especially regarding the Iraq War, whilst McCain hitches his wagon to the Iraq Fiasco, is arguably "helpful."
I should say, by the way, as a dangerously analytical thinker, I'm not comfortable when I don't have the facts. While I would very much like to believe that what's said in McClellan's book is true, it may not be. He really may just be a self-involved moron who sees which way the wind is blowing and wrote a book about information he really doesn't know anything about (for the uninitiated: the Fleischer/Perino line is that in the run-up to the war McClellan was an underling with no access to foreign policy info, and would have no way of knowing if the war was waged based on cynical "propaganda" and never expressed any concerns at the time).
So, McClellan's books is "helpful." Just like, in the aftermath of Katrina, when Michael Brown reeemerge,d his critique of the Administration during that disaster was "helpful." But here's the problem.
Michael Brown is a horrible, unqualified, nepotism-benefitting sack of shit who makes the FEMA response even worse than it would have been by is lazy incompetence. Michael Brown, after being booted from FEMA, starts to say things I like, in way: the Administration was absentee during the critical period of the hurricane, FEMA was underfunded, Bush was disinterested, etc. He makes his rounds on the talk shows. Therefore, the right starts to attack Michael Brown. The question for dyrrachium: do I stick up for the guy? After mercilessly deriding this troglodyte in charge of a vitally important federal agency, when the Malkins and Chertoffs and Limbaughs and Snows of the world start tearing him to pieces to defend the Adminstration do I say, "come on, let's hear the guy out?" How carefully can I actually thread the needle--and keep my integrity--between remembering that Michael Brown is a total incompetent undeserving of sympathy for not only being unqualified, but by the email record clearly NOT EVEN CARING about the deaths, injury, and heartache he helped come about and the fact that the Administration criticisms he later raises--in his own simpleton way--are pretty much true?
Because at the end of the day, I can't for one minute forget that Michael Brown was in snakey, despicable, self-preservation mode. He was hated. He was a punchline. He was thrown to the wolves by the Administration. All of a sudden, it occurs to him that maybe there's something wrong with his former bosses. Of course, if they'd kept patting him on the back, kept defending him, kept him in line for more promotions, more nepotism, more power and influence, such a revelation would never have entered his dim skull. It's funny how that works. So when he makes the talk show rounds and--in his selfish, totally unprincipled cynical attempt at revenge--says the Bushies are coldherated incompetents, and the right wing noise machine lets him have it in response, do I try to help salvage the guy's message or say: "Fuck it. Let the wolves eat him."
And that brings us to Scott McClellan.
The man is clearly, CLEARLY, a moral coward. This is hard for me to say, but much of what the Fleischers and Perinos of this world are saying right now strikes me as completely true. I doubt, while working for the White House, McClellan ever made one peep about what was happening. I actually believe Ari Fleischer, for the first time in my life. McClellan didn't have a crisis of conscience, because he doesn't have one. If he did, he would have sacrificed his career (not his life, not his health, not even his ability to work again), and said something at the time.
But he didn't. He waited until a failed Administration had 8 lame duck months left. It's not as if saying "Bush Administration Press Secretaroy" on your resume was going to help him get great gigs. Even most Republicans want to forget this shit ever happened. So, the classic opportunist move: when the old boss nobody seems to like anymore is 5 days from retirement, you tell everyone (including the new boss) that he was incompetent after dutifully sucking his dick for 35 years.
Still, when the Bushies make the rounds denounciong the guy, part of me wants to stick up for old Scottie. But I just don't think I have it in me.
I go to law school. I don't know if Press Secretary's have the background, but I know this much. I've learned it from the wonderful world of law school. Most people here don't have crises of conscience. They don't know what those words mean, the career driven, moeny & prestige loving bastards. Occassionally, however, they see the writing on the wall, and to save their careerist hides, redeem themselves, and live to grovel another day, make an argument diametrically opposed to the one they previously did. You see, they saw the weathervane, and the gale's a-blowin' a different way. That's what Scottie saw.
Do you stick up for what the charlatan, the moral coward, the groveling hide-saver says, or just let the wolves fucking eat him already?