In today's NYT, there is a story about Scott McClellan and how he is dealing with the fallout of the Plame affair on his credibility. Specifically, with the statement he made on October 7, 2003: "...and that's why I spoke to them [Libby and Rove], so that I could come back to you [the press corps] and say that they were not involved."
This statement was not true. But I don't think he lied - I don't believe he was intentionally deceiving the press corps. I think he was lied to and then passed that lie onto the press corps as the truth.
Since thefalsehood was exposed, the press corps has done a decent job of trying to get McClellan to comment on his earlier, now disproven, statements. They have also begun to question his credibility as a spokesperson for the White House.
In order for Scott McClellan to attempt to regain any sense of crediblity with the White House press corps (and the American public as a whole), either Karl Rove or Scott McClellan should leave the White House.
Public relations professionals, or flacks, like myself often get a bad wrap. We are usually lumped together with Used Car Salesmen and Personal Injury Litigators when judging professions by their honesty. I believe this reputation for flacks is mostly undeserved ("Baghdad Bob" beside the point). Without credibility, a flack cannot do his/her job. No reporter would ever call a known liar for comment on anything (except Judith Miller).
While it's easy to be honest when things are going well for one's client, it's the difficult times that define you as a reliable source. And your reputation is built on how you react to those situations.
Scott McClellan is in one of those situations right now. He was lied to and he subsequently passed that information on to the press corps as the truth. No indictments of Karl or Scooter directly related to the actual leak are needed for this to be proven the case. It was already proven the case by the testimony (under oath) of the reporters to whom they leaked the information.
Scott disseminated misinformation to the press corp. More importantly, he now knows that he disseminated misinformation to the press corp. And, most importantly, he knows that the press corps knows that he disseminated misinformation to them.
As such, only two options are available:
(i) The President live up to his word and actually fire everyone involved in the leak. He would then have to say publicly that his previous statements were "inoperative" and that Scooter and Karl were indeed involved and, pursuant to the President's earlier oath, neither are now part of the administration.
(ii) Scott McClellan must resign and in his letter of resignation, he must say something that indicates that recent events have led to a situation where he believes someone else would be better served representing the White House to the press and the broader public. Only then can he hope to preserve his credibility.
Of course, none of this will happen. Karl won't leave the White House until a subpoena is handed down and, frankly, there's no need for Scott to resign in protest in order to preserve his credibility. Scott will leave his White House gig in a few years and get a multi-million dollar salary for some PR firm somewhere whether he does this or not.
So sad.