Scott McClellan

[monsoon]

Scott McClellan who was Bush's press secretary from 2003-2006 has come out with a scathing book that accuses the Bush administration of going to war solely remake the Middle East. i.e. nation building. i.e His father's references to the "New World Order". Scott says the administration knew the American people would never agree to a war on this basis so they did a big time marketing campaign to tie Saddam Hussein to terrorism and WMDs. (both turned out not to be true) Pat Robertson refers to this as "Imperial Democracy". That is you will do what we want as long as a gun is pointed at your head.

Furthermore he accuses the media of being very complicit in the entire affair. I agree with that as there was scant questioning by the media over the cries to go to war and now the media is falling all over itself to make excuses as to why this happened. Tom Brocaw has already appeared on the Nightly News to somehow try to say they were "fooled" too.

In typical fashion the Bush administration has gone into full time character assassination of Scott McClellan in hopes of changing the story from what they did, to that of questioning Scott's credibility. I suppose there will always be people that were happy we invaded and destroyed Iraq, but I find Scott's book to be a vindication of what many of us have been saying about the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/Wolfawitz war for years. This from a member of the Bush inner circle.

History will look back on this entire mess and wonder how so many people, responsible people, got it so wrong about the war.

[suburban george3]

History will look back on this entire mess and wonder how so many people, responsible people, got it wrong about the war.

[Justadude]

McClellan is in a unique position to truly pull back the curtain on the propoganda machine, and it is extremely telling that even while Bush is still in office he has already come forward to expose the rampant corruption that he witnessed. No big surprise that Bush officials are lining up for their turn to throw him under the bus, despite the fact that they are basically demonstrating the kind of behavior he reports in the book.

From the excerpts I have read, it appears that part of the problem afflicting our democracy is the notion of a "permanent campaign". To put it simply, the job of the President and his government is not to be re-elected; it is to perform the duties of office faithfully and in the best interest of the nation. When election becomes the #1 priority driving Presidential decisions, the natural result is that he is perpetually conflicted against the interests of half the nation -- the half which will not vote for him. This approach to governance is fundamentally at odds with representative democracy, but it has become the status quo.

[dxartist]

Honestly, I thought this book would have been vanilla and watered down at best with respects to Iraq. Apparently it's not since it got the attention of the White House to the point where the admin is responding like attack dogs. As far as Scott being thrown under the bus, it's kind of hard since he already left. So badmouthing him is their only option at this point, which seems childish at best.

tangent here: I will admit, after 9-11 I supported our Pres until he decided to illegally invade Iraq under to false pretense of WMD. But after the invasion, I knew that we would be in Iraq for a long..................................long time. Sure we won the war (with Saddam), but didn't win the peace. And we still don't have an exit strategy. What really pissed me off was seeing Rumsfeld smug face after the shock and awe lasted a few days.

[Charlotte_native]

I'll admit that this book and what has transpired shocked me when I saw it on the news yesterday. Though the people that support W. no matter what will believe he is lying, doing this for money, and anything else that Faux News and the Bush cronies say about it, I think many others might just finally realize they (and we as a result of their votes) have been duped big time. To so many of us what he says is no surprise, but to people who want to believe, so bad, that Bush is a good man with good intentions and this administration has been forthright, someone of this stature in the administration saying what he is saying should make them take note. It's sad and pathetic that Bush's approval rating isn't zero.

I'm glad McClellen did this -- it's time the truth comes out and these guys unravel.