Former spokesman bashes Bush in 'What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception'
UPDATE: McClellan Goes Full Hour With Olbermann: Watch HighlightsWASHINGTON - In a shocking turnabout, the press secretary most known for defending President Bush on Iraq, Katrina and a host of other controversial issues produced a memoir damning of his old boss on nearly every level -- from too much secrecy to a less-than-honest selling of the war to a lack of personal candor and an unwillingness to admit mistakes.
In the first major insider account of the Bush White House, one-time spokesman Scott McClellan calls the operation "insular, secretive and combative" and says it veered irretrievably off course as a result. More on the book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Also: see all Editorial Reviews
The White House responded angrily Wednesday to McClellan's confessional memoir, calling it self-serving sour grapes.
"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," said current White House press secretary Dana Perino, a former deputy to McClellan. "We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew."
McClellan was the White House press secretary from May 2003 to April 2006, the second of four so far in Bush's presidency.
He reveals that he was pushed to leave earlier than he had planned, and he displays some bitterness about that as well as about being sometimes kept out of the loop on key decision-making sessions.
He excludes himself from major involvement in some of what he calls the administration's biggest blunders, for instance the decision to go to war and the initial campaign to sell that decision to the American people. But he doesn't spare himself entirely, saying, "I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be.
He includes criticism for the reporters whose questions he fielded. The news media, he says, were "complicit enablers" for focusing more on "covering the march to war instead of the necessity of war." See Former spokesman bashes Bush in new book
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In the first major insider account of the Bush White House, one-time spokesman Scott McClellan calls the operation "insular, secretive and combative" and says it veered irretrievably off course as a result. More on the book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Also: see all Editorial Reviews
The White House responded angrily Wednesday to McClellan's confessional memoir, calling it self-serving sour grapes.
"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," said current White House press secretary Dana Perino, a former deputy to McClellan. "We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew."
McClellan was the White House press secretary from May 2003 to April 2006, the second of four so far in Bush's presidency.
He reveals that he was pushed to leave earlier than he had planned, and he displays some bitterness about that as well as about being sometimes kept out of the loop on key decision-making sessions.
He excludes himself from major involvement in some of what he calls the administration's biggest blunders, for instance the decision to go to war and the initial campaign to sell that decision to the American people. But he doesn't spare himself entirely, saying, "I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be.
He includes criticism for the reporters whose questions he fielded. The news media, he says, were "complicit enablers" for focusing more on "covering the march to war instead of the necessity of war." See Former spokesman bashes Bush in new book
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posted by Tom Jackson @ Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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