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What happened: Inside the Bush white house and Washington’s culture of deception
By Scott McClellan (Public Affairs, $27.95)
Whatever qualities George W. Bush brought to the presidency, the ability to inspire loyalty in others obviously was not among them.
The evidence seems to suggest, in fact, that you probably would have to go back to the Borgia court to find anything close to the miasma of feral self-interest that must hang in the air during one of this administration's staff or Cabinet meetings.
Scott McClellan -- the second of Bush's four press secretaries -- is the first of Bush's Austin-based inner circle to turn on his former boss. According to McClellan:
The president went to war against Iraq to secure his place in history and to spread democracy in the Middle East. Because he and his aides knew the case for war couldn't be sold to the American people on that basis, he deliberately misrepresented information in what amounted to a "propaganda campaign."
Presidential political adviser Karl Rove and former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to McClellan about their roles in the Valerie Plame affair, leading him -- in turn -- to lie to the media.
Rove's influence led Bush to give politics primacy over policy, even when dealing with national security, and played a particularly strong role in the administration's abominable response to the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
The White House and its surrogates deny all this, stressing that, as the deputy press secretary during the run-up to the war, McClellan wasn't in a position to have firsthand knowledge concerning some of the issues he discusses.
Although the author says he continues to regard Bush as basically a good and decent man -- and rejects the suspicion that the chief executive simply is stupid -- he does adjudge him utterly lacking in an inclination for self-scrutiny. He is, according to McClellan, particularly prone to self-deception and unable to acknowledge error for "fear of appearing weak."
McClellan, for example, recounts several instances during Bush's first presidential campaign during which the candidate virtually willed himself into forgetting incidents involving youthful cocaine and alcohol use that might have proved politically embarrassing.
At one point, McClellan writes that he undertook his confessional memoir, in part, to square his conscience with his Christianity. Even so, "the devil made me do it" just won't wash as an explanation for this administration's eight years of misgovernment.
Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times
What happened: Inside the Bush white house and Washingtons culture of deception | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
By Scott McClellan (Public Affairs, $27.95)
Whatever qualities George W. Bush brought to the presidency, the ability to inspire loyalty in others obviously was not among them.
The evidence seems to suggest, in fact, that you probably would have to go back to the Borgia court to find anything close to the miasma of feral self-interest that must hang in the air during one of this administration's staff or Cabinet meetings.
Scott McClellan -- the second of Bush's four press secretaries -- is the first of Bush's Austin-based inner circle to turn on his former boss. According to McClellan:
The president went to war against Iraq to secure his place in history and to spread democracy in the Middle East. Because he and his aides knew the case for war couldn't be sold to the American people on that basis, he deliberately misrepresented information in what amounted to a "propaganda campaign."
Presidential political adviser Karl Rove and former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to McClellan about their roles in the Valerie Plame affair, leading him -- in turn -- to lie to the media.
Rove's influence led Bush to give politics primacy over policy, even when dealing with national security, and played a particularly strong role in the administration's abominable response to the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
The White House and its surrogates deny all this, stressing that, as the deputy press secretary during the run-up to the war, McClellan wasn't in a position to have firsthand knowledge concerning some of the issues he discusses.
Although the author says he continues to regard Bush as basically a good and decent man -- and rejects the suspicion that the chief executive simply is stupid -- he does adjudge him utterly lacking in an inclination for self-scrutiny. He is, according to McClellan, particularly prone to self-deception and unable to acknowledge error for "fear of appearing weak."
McClellan, for example, recounts several instances during Bush's first presidential campaign during which the candidate virtually willed himself into forgetting incidents involving youthful cocaine and alcohol use that might have proved politically embarrassing.
At one point, McClellan writes that he undertook his confessional memoir, in part, to square his conscience with his Christianity. Even so, "the devil made me do it" just won't wash as an explanation for this administration's eight years of misgovernment.
Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times
What happened: Inside the Bush white house and Washingtons culture of deception | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
