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McClellan's 'Mea Culpa' Way Too Late
"The first grave mistake of Bush's presidency was rushing toward military confrontation with Iraq. It took his presidency off course and greatly damaged his standing with the public. His second grave mistake was his virtual blindness about his first mistake . . . ''-- Scott McClellan in What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.
Years ago, I gave one of my kids some advice. Don't do such-and-such, I said. If you do, so-and-so is going to happen and it will not be pretty.
Naturally, the kid did not take my advice and the outcome I predicted came to pass. Sometime later, we're riding along and the kid turns to me and says, in a tone of wonder, "You were right.''
You may think this was an ''I told you so'' moment. Actually, it would have been an attempted homicide moment had I not been driving. ''You were right?!'' Like this was news? Like it was a revelation? I knew I was right. Any intelligent adult would have known I was right. Being right was not rocket science. So I didn't need any belated validation. I needed for this kid to have listened to me. What headaches and hardship might have been avoided had this child only listened?
The analogy is imperfect for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Scott McClellan is not my child. Yet I hope it imparts some sense of how it feels to choke down the new book by the former Bush White House spokesman in which he finally acknowledges that, yes, whaddayou know, the war in Iraq was a blunder, marketed like McDonald's to a compliant public and a prone press, and exacerbated by the inability of an incurious president to face any reality that conflicted with the fantasies he had erected around him.
Defender of Iraq debacle
It is hard to imagine a public confession more extraordinarily frustrating or profoundly unsatisfying.
For almost three years, McClellan was the lead salesman and staunch defender of the Iraq debacle, the man who swore with a straight face and evident sincerity that up was down and black, white. Now here he comes with this remarkable mea culpa, and it's hard to know what he expects a reader to take away.
There is no cheap joy of ''I told you so'' in this book. Too many people are limbless, maimed and dead for that, too much treasure is lost, too many lives are ruined, too much national prestige has been peed away.
And if the idea is for McClellan to reclaim his integrity, well, that ship has sailed -- and sunk. The time for integrity was four or five years ago when telling the truth would have required some guts, when it might have meant something, challenged something, changed something.
A publicity hound?
But four years ago, McClellan was too busy savaging a man who did have the integrity to speak truth to power in the moment when it mattered. When former White House counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke made some of the same arguments in his book Against All Enemies that McClellan makes now, McClellan led the White House counterattack, calling Clarke a publicity hound with no credibility.
It is ironic -- and satisfyingly appropriate -- that angry defenders of the president are now leveling the same charges against McClellan.
But that's a political sideshow that doesn't move the ball forward a single inch. Not that there's anything really to do at this point other than hope whoever becomes president in January will bring to the Oval Office a capacity for reason and an ability to countenance unwelcome realities that haven't been seen in that space for far too long.
Between now and then, we are left to ponder this sad, meaningless little confession. Perhaps the best response is simply, thanks for nothing.
You may think that's harsh. I think there are few things less satisfying than being validated in what you already knew, too late to make a difference.
--Leonard Pitts Jr.
Copyright 2008 Miami Herald Media Co.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllA "Mea Culpa" does not exonerate McClyin from having committed crimes, even if he was only an accessory to those crimes. He knew damn well he was peddling lies.
As the author of this article says "Too many people are limbless, maimed or dead...too much treasure is lost, too many lives ruined, too much national treasure has been peed away."
Ah, the old snake oil salesman who watched people die from the effects of the "wonder cure" and now wants to blame it all on the Big Bush Kahuna AND profit from it. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Scottie. You were part of the snow-job, you were Mr. Henchman's right-hand bully in the pulpit.
In this whole Scott McClellan saga, what the media and the public misses is the suffocating power of group- think within most institutions. Institutional group- think obscures reality and the people within the system are often too overworked and too indoctrinated to see otherwise. It is the story of our times.
To break from paralyzing institutional mind-set, the "lower-level" person who senses something is wrong, is more apt to resign than blow-the-whistle on the all-powerful who can squish you like a bug and black-ball you forever. Scott did not have the courage to do this. He just lost his job. Daniel Ellsberg took the courageous position with the Pentagon Papers but even he regretted it took him so long to do so.
It is easy for one to judge, when one has never been "imprisoned" in the "institutional/corporate box". This is the potential evil of all institutional power.
The control freak Capitalists love it.
Call me skeptical. Anyone who claims to still admire and respect Bush either has a screw loose, or another agenda.
The polar opposite of damning with faint praise is blessing with faint criticism. A classic espionage technique is making a failed assassination attempt on your own spy. This clears him of any suspicion: if he were yours, you wouldn't try to take him out!
I think what we're seeing is a convoluted two-fer: McClellan's attempt to rebuild his bank account and reputation, while insulating Bush from the worst of his responsibilties for the many unlawful acts of his presidency. Bruises; no blood.
Consider that McClellan is only telling us what we already knew, as if he had just now discovered it through deep introspection. Contrast his with John Perkins' revelations and change of world view (Economic Hitman). McClellan just doesn't seem remorseful; too much admiration in his smile as he describes Cheney's manipulation of the press (We were gooood!).
McClellan's book may read like an act of revenge against his longtime patron (this from a guy who might not have gotten on anybody's White House team except as partisan hack). Note, however, he carefully assures us Bush actually was smart enough to be our President (why exactly do we need this reassurance?) and that Bush himself was deceived by his own people. Victim, not perpetrator.
Could this be a crafty firewall in the guise of a tell-all, erected in anticipation of a coming change in administration. "Clearly no point in going after Bush... his own man, McClellan, who said all those terrible things about the administration, already reassured us he was innocent of wrong doing. Inept, sure; overly political, certainly; but nothing we could nail him for. End of story."
Give 'em what they want. Lots of icing; no cake.
Usually when one falls on his sword for an administration he gets bloody (think Libby). In this case, he of the less-than-fluent-mouth, gets wealthy and famous off a rather-too-well written tome and da Boss gets an innoculation.
A Trojan horse for our times?
McClellan did not say "Me Culpa" and he did not offer and appology or
regret for defending and promoting Bush"s policies.
He talked from both sides of his mouth and fudged and equivocated and
in the end of the day he said Bush did what "he believed in" and he
has nothing but "respect and admiration for him!!??".
McClellan wanted to make few millions and all the current hoopla and fuss
about his book is nothing but orchestrated campaign to promote his book.
He was and is and will always be one of Bush's trusted inner circle.
The whole thing is a clever hoax to sell a book.
The lying POS should be awaiting arraignment, not cashing checks and doing the "talk show circuit." He drove the damn getaway car for f**ks sake! And, in the "real" world, the getaway driver receives the same sentence as the bank robbers.
Or, to put it another way: he held the guy down while his friends stabbed the guy to death. In the "real" world, he's as guilty of murder as the murderers.
Jesus Christ - Martha Stewart told a single lie to the FBI (she dared to say she was innocent) and she landed in the pokey. This traitor aided and abetted the murder and maiming of millions, not to mention the theft of billions, and he's poppin up on the tube every five minutes like he was the new Brittany.
F**k him and the traitorous horse he rode in on...
DR JIM: My money is on YOUR acute analysis. Excellent!
STEPHEN V. RILEY: Your assessment might work if the crime was a lesser one, but this smirking insider yes-man was the FRONT man to a con job that has cost MANY MANY lives, ruined the US reputation, gutted our treasury and lent a veil of legitimacy to acts of torture along with a nullification of the nation's Constitution.
Scott put a happy face on it all, was the prosac served to offset the otherwise palpable angst that people IN THE KNOW would feel upon experiencing the levels of outrage this administration has won through so many woeful acts of sabotage and willful dereliction of duty to the Constitution, the nation, and the God it swears to serve!
This guy hired on as a stooge. Why on earth would he be surprised that Bush, who will be the recipient of a large portion of the 81 billion dollars controlled by The Carlyle Group thinks of him as anything other than a hireling?
You're quite right, Atexan, McClellan did no mea culpa whatsoever.
As for Leonard Pitts, he may have been right all along, but where was his paper? Has the Miami Herald done what Steven Colbert calls a media culpa?
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=171036
I do not care about McClellan motives, just good to see some insiders spill the beans.You know there are still those who refuse to see Bush and company as the criminal skunks and traitors they are---- if many more insiders spill their guts ,then maybe some of these myopic :God Bless America" cultists will finally see the light.
I hope the writer of this article did not have to pay for it. I also hope no Common Dreamer would contribute to McClellan's retirement account. As every commenter observes, "To little, to late," and "a mea culpa of meaningless money grubbing cowardice."
Useless waste of paper and my time reading it. I watched him until I would almost retch. I owe him no equal time nor one thought towards his vindication.
The same for Ari the Laughing Snake and the cutesy Dana Dump.
Adios
McClellan is a whore who despite being paid, suddenly feels used. Of course he was used. He's a whore! What did he expect. He was a liar for Bush. That was his job and he did it well. He didn't have a conscience about it then; why develop one now when it means nothing. Like Colin Powell, a bigger whore, he should have spoken up when it could have changed something. Now we have a dissaster on our hands and he feels suddenly sorry about it. If any of the big boys end up in the clink for war crimes, he should be right there with them.
I am struck by how much McClellan's appearance has changed, by how much more natural and at peace he seems, and I wonder if we will learn of a religious aspect to his change of views. But I think he is still "in process," and that there are still things he has yet to admit to himself -- and yet to learn about his former boss, despite the title of his book. In any event, I am glad he has announced he will be giving some of the proceeds to organizations that support veterans.
But I agree this confession is unsatisfying. For example, McClellan says he had believed Bush would govern in a bipartisan fashion "as he had done in Texas." But, in Texas, Bush had no choice but to cooperate if he wanted to get anything done, due to the extraordinary power given in that state's constitution to the Speaker, who was a Democrat. I never did think that was a very meaningful test, or a real indicator of Bush's intentions as president.
Stephan B. Reilly:
Your defence of McClellan is a lame excuse.
FYI: He didn't just fall off the turnip truck. Hailing from a political family, he should've been savvy enough to recognize a sleazy opportunist like Bushit. He claims he was friends with Bushwack, if true, as an intimate friend, he should've been able to detect bushwack's hypocracy and lies...
The most damning part of McClellan's book was his all too correct assessment of the supine behavior of the corporate media in the run-up to the Iraq debacle. If they had actually done anything close to the role assigned to them in Journalism 101, McClellan's lies would have been less easily swallowed. It is no surprise that said corporate media is concentrating on the sturm und drang emanating from the Bush crime family cronies instead of rehashing their own complicity. Though this tome would have been more optimal earlier, it is better late than never.
I say that it is good that he spoke up now. Remember how long it took Robert McNamara to speak out against the Vietnam war.
We can't pick and choose. We need to take what comes our way. Ease up.
... didn't Al Gore's book The Assualt on Reason already cover the highlights of all this in adequate detail to begin the impeachment process?? It is absurd that Bill Clinton gets impeached for "not having sex with that woman" and this crowd gets away with fiddling about while the planet burns ...