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Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 2:05:36 PM   
kittinSol


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Status: offline 		They're falling like flies: another Bush member of staff, former press secretary Scott McClellan, writes an illuminating new memoir. Nice timing, too. The broad assault is on the Bush Whitehouse in general: "dishonnest in the way it sold the war".

WASHINGTON - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush's presidency "terribly off course.'

The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."

"In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes.

(...)

McClellan called the Iraq war a "serious strategic blunder," a surprisingly harsh assessment from the man who was at that time the loyal public voice of the White House who had followed Bush to Washington from Texas.

"The Iraq war was not necessary," he concludes. "Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake."

McClellan admits that some of his own words from the podium in the White House briefing room turned out to be "badly misguided." But he says he was sincere at the time.

McClellan Memoir Link .

< Message edited by kittinSol -- 5/28/2008 2:09:17 PM >

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:05:32 PM   
Hippiekinkster


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Status: offline 		God Bless America!!!

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:09:55 PM   
peterK50


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Status: offline 		Now sit back & wait for the smear campaign that will fly out of the White House. It has happened with everyone else who was sickened by what the administration has been up to for 8 years & has gone public. By the time they get done with poor Scott he will have had Bin Ladin hiding in his closet.

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:11:18 PM   
kittinSol


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Status: offline 		It's interesting that the most bunker-like administration has produced such a large number of kiss and tellers. I've lost track now, but there's been a lot of them: it's as if they loose their religion after they leave. Could it be the indoctrination only lasts for the amount of time they spend within the White House's mist? Then you have the whole 'psychology of betrayal' thing going on behind the stage... why do they snap like that? Burden of remorse?

< Message edited by kittinSol -- 5/28/2008 3:12:19 PM >

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:21:16 PM   
celticlord2112


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol
They're falling like flies: another Bush member of staff, former press secretary Scott McClellan, writes an illuminating new memoir. Nice timing, too. The broad assault is on the Bush Whitehouse in general: "dishonnest in the way it sold the war".

Impeccable timing......if you want to sell lots of books. Not so great for the credibility angle. McClellan stepped down as Press Secretary two years ago. It doesn't take two years to write a memoir. As a former press secretary, he would have had publishers salivating over his memoir, with nice tidy advances to spur him along.

Frankly, Karl Rove asks the right question--if McClellan's morals were so discomfited by how the Bush Administration pressed their case for the Iraq war, where were his objections then? MY question is why did it take him unti 2006 (more than three years AFTER the invasion) to become sufficiently outraged as to resign from the Administration?

There is little doubt that Bush mangled and mishandled the invasion, the build up to the invasion, and the aftermath of the invasion. However, McClellan's little "act of contrition" seems marvelously self-serving, particularly in its timing.

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:24:57 PM   
kittinSol


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Status: offline 		Maybe it's self-serving, but that's secondary. You can't expect bastards' motives to be pure. I'm grateful when they decide to provide a little light on what they spent their time doing behind the fortress walls.

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:42:37 PM   
celticlord2112


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Maybe it's self-serving, but that's secondary. You can't expect bastards' motives to be pure. I'm grateful when they decide to provide a little light on what they spent their time doing behind the fortress walls.

I don't expect their motives to be pure at all....but without an understanding of their motives one cannot properly assess credibility. "Kiss and Tell" is a lot like "he said she said"--rarely very useful at illuminating actual events. It may sell well, but will it serve as a useful historical record of what actually transpired in 2003? I am extremely skeptical about that.

And, if all McClellan can say is there was a culture of deception.....how can you be certain he's not pandering to that pre-existing sentiment among Americans?

I don't know if his recitation of events is accurate or not. But his timing and his portrayal of the book as a moralistic exercise in contrition don't impress me, other than to underscore the value of strict term limits for all of Washington. Send all the bastards home and start fresh.

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:43:20 PM   
bipolarber


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Status: offline 		Um... the timing is bad for credibility? (Assuming anyone who's been a part of this hideous administration had any to begin with.) McClellan's not telling us anything that we didn't already know. We'll know better once the book is realeased on June 2nd, but I'm willing to bet it's just a verification, rather than a revelation.

Kiss and tell? Not really...

Just a paid confession.

Being a Press Secretary for this, the "H.P. Lovecraft Administration" must be one of the most soul crushing jobs on the face of the Earth. To have to stand up there, behind that podium, and LIE your ass off when you KNOW just how much this cancer from within is spreading...* to make this Texas pigfucker sound like he's competent, and doing the right thing... God, that has to be about as bad as the movie "Angelheart." Where you've sold your immortal soul to Satan, and you just don't remember it until the day you die. No wonder "junior" has gone through (Four? Five?) Press Secretaries in the last eight years. Even the strongest of them couldn't hack it for long. Like working in a horse rending plant... If you get used to it... if you start to NOT feel sick at the killing... then it's time to leave.

* Sorry Ari, in your case it was literal. No offense to you. That comment was meant in the strictest of metaphorical senses.

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 3:55:30 PM   
celticlord2112


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quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber
Um... the timing is bad for credibility?

From an objective view point that is interested in more than how many new ways one can demonize GWB, it's extremely bad for credibility.

And you are quite correct--McClellan's portrayal of the White House seems to fall right in line with what Bush haters believe it to be. Pandering is a great way to sell books, but, again, it makes for an atrocious historical record.

If Americans are to learn anything meaningful from the Iraq war and all the mistakes that went into its creation, a serious memoir needs to be published. I don't believe McClellan's memoir will meet that standard.

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 4:00:43 PM   
bipolarber


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Status: offline 		No, it probably doesn't... but then, his is hardly going to be the last. This book, and the few that have preceeded it, are just the trickle coming through the dam... and there's no little dutch boy on duty to plug the hole.

(Well, I'd offer MY finger to the Bush administration, but it wouldn't be for the reason of stopping the flow of information. They're already too good at that as it is.)

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 4:08:16 PM   
celticlord2112


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quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber
No, it probably doesn't... but then, his is hardly going to be the last. This book, and the few that have preceeded it, are just the trickle coming through the dam... and there's no little dutch boy on duty to plug the hole.

Myself, I see little merit in publishing books that do little more than continue an excoriation of GWB. People don't like him, and liberal types loathe and despise him. Ok...bully for y'all. What good does it do anyone to continue to dwell on the "I hate Bush" rhetoric when the man is out of office in just over 7 months?

When are folks going to take the time to actually study the Bush Presidency seriously, so that a future Iraq can be avoided?

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 4:33:49 PM   
LadyQuirk


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Status: offline 		Why a book with seven months to go? Because the damage the man has done is mind boggling- that's why. "The most corrupt administration in the history of this country" isn't a Jimmy Carter quote. It's Carter quoting any random resident of the Gulf Coast. I said the same thing, word for word, weeks earlier. It's not just about the war. Corporate war lords tearing the middle class to pieces comes up as well...

Perhaps it takes two years for the Kool Aid to wear off. People need to feed the mortgage, and can get led into some strange places. Even men who have consciences can wind up in a W administration- and regret it horribly when a little distance happens.

People don't like W? That's naive. People HATE W. Most people. Republicans included. There's very little space for the pet demons to do hatchet jobs anymore. Did you even turn on the TV in September of 2005? People I talk to are still horrified and outraged by that; add that war and the gutted middle class crushed by debt and a bleak future, Even super right wing Christians won't call themselves Republican.

We had an Iraq. It was called Vietnam. You want to talk about learning from history? The parrallels were all over the talking head shows and dining room tables in this country- but remember 911 had people looking for somebody to bomb. Bush just worked with the situation to get what he wanted.

< Message edited by LadyQuirk -- 5/28/2008 4:37:47 PM >

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 5:12:22 PM   
cjan


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Status: offline 		I agree that McLlellan's book is probably self serving and probably written to make a bundle and, perhaps, settle some old scores. Don't forget, no one's read it yet since it doesn't come out until June 1.

McClellan is, imo, just another self-serving weasel in an adminstration chock full of them. He lied through his teeth, all the time knowing what he was doing, while he was press secretary and now wants to cash in on telling the "truth". The truth that, to a large extent, is public knowledge by now.

He is, imo, a co-conspirator in Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors. I'm referring speifically to the Bush administration's policy of lying and deceiving the country and taking it to war in Iraq under false pretenses.

The whole lot, including Cheney, Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, et al,after a thorough, idependent investigation, should be indicted for crimes that are uncovered.


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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 5:26:25 PM   
Emperor1956


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Status: offline 		FR:  The most interesting thing to me about McLellan's book is all of the comments "This doesn't sound like the Scott we/I knew!"   McLellan was notorious for being a complete asskissing yes man all the time he was affiliated with the George W machine (basically the past 18 years -- he started sucking GWB's dick in Texas).  Apparently the man drank so deep of the Bush Kool-aid that he masked his true feelings (and his morals) until he was dumped.   So now everyone is saying "Scottie?  How could he turn on US this way."

And the answer of course is that he -- like his brother, former FDA administrator Mark McL., has absolutely no moral compass.  He'll fall for anything, everytime.  Now it is hip time to bash his former boss -- and away he goes.

E.

BTW....BIG EXTRA POINTS:  Any one remember George W's comments two years ago when Scotty McLellan left the White House?

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 5:26:58 PM   
Hippiekinkster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber
Um... the timing is bad for credibility?

From an objective view point that is interested in more than how many new ways one can demonize GWB, it's extremely bad for credibility.
Whose objective viewpoint?

quote:

And you are quite correct--McClellan's portrayal of the White House seems to fall right in line with what Bush haters believe it to be. Pandering is a great way to sell books, but, again, it makes for an atrocious historical record.
McClellan's portrayal of the Bush White House confirms what all but the most rabid Bushistas already knew. McClellan's voice presents an important historical counterpoint to the drones of the Bushistas, whose distortions and fabrications will be accepted as reality only within the confines of the GWB "library".




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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 5:51:04 PM   
Alumbrado


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quote:

ORIGINAL: cjan

I agree that McLlellan's book is probably self serving and probably written to make a bundle and, perhaps, settle some old scores. Don't forget, no one's read it yet since it doesn't come out until June 1.

McClellan is, imo, just another self-serving weasel in an adminstration chock full of them. He lied through his teeth, all the time knowing what he was doing, while he was press secretary and now wants to cash in on telling the "truth". The truth that, to a large extent, is public knowledge by now.

He is, imo, a co-conspirator in Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors. I'm referring speifically to the Bush administration's policy of lying and deceiving the country and taking it to war in Iraq under false pretenses.

The whole lot, including Cheney, Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, et al,after a thorough, idependent investigation, should be indicted for crimes that are uncovered.



Which raises an interesting question... Would McClellan under indictment as a co-conspirator suddenly remember that maybe the White House press secretary isn't privy to all of those sooper seekrit meetings after all?
Or will he insist 'This is no shit, there we were, me and Dubya and Bin laden...'?

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 5:53:15 PM   
cpK69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

McClellan called the Iraq war a "serious strategic blunder,"



Ah ha ha ha!!! That’s a good one…

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 5:58:22 PM   
dcnovice


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quote:

Myself, I see little merit in publishing books that do little more than continue an excoriation of GWB. People don't like him, and liberal types loathe and despise him.


But McClellan wasn't a "liberal type." He was Bush's own spokesman.

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 6:14:05 PM   
Sanity


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Status: offline 		This reminds me very much of Dick Morris making millions off of his intimate relationship with Billary. How were his "tell alls" recieved among Liberals. Didn't they consider him a traitor?

But this, today - this different.

Isn't it...

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RE: Kiss and tell. - 5/28/2008 7:38:35 PM   
bipolarber


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Status: offline 		MSNBC just did a mashup of all the responses from the White House, and those involved... You have to admit, they certainly have their email lists updated... they are all saying exactly the same thing:

"I'm puzzled... this does not sound like the Scott McClellan I knew... it's sad... he must be doing it for the money."  - Bush, Rove, Dana, Dick...

Guys? Could you please mix it up a bit so it isn't so obvious that you guys are just parroting a talking point someone circulated?

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