24 Comments

1. David Thomson:

Will Scott McClella’s book even earn enough money to justify his advance? Of course, it’s unlikely that we will ever know for sure. It is my guess, however, that George Soros and other left-wing tycoons may be using books such as this one as a IRS tax write off.

Jun 1, 2008 - 12:29 pm 2. Lem:

“I believe I have gotten to the truth, from my perspective” says Scott Mcclellan.

The perspective behind a cash register?

I was under the impression that people used to wait until the end of a presidency to write those kiss and tell books.

I don’t know if that’s ever been true.

Jun 1, 2008 - 1:09 pm 3. Rhod:

McClellan looks like a boob, and IS a boob. Bush’s virtues didn’t include the power to clearly judge the quality of the people around him – like McClellan and Miers and Gonzales.

McClellan’s interview with Couric exposed him as an earnest lightweight, way out of his depth with the simplest issues.

Jun 1, 2008 - 1:11 pm 4. Rhod:

Lem, McClellan was searching for the truth from HIS perspective. This is the post-modern alibi for stupidity.

Jun 1, 2008 - 1:13 pm 5. ligneus:

Ha, you should see the incredulous looks I’ve got over the last few years for opining that Bush would go down in history as a great President!

Jun 1, 2008 - 1:51 pm 6. Lightnin' Hopkins:

I can remember people bemoaning the fact that 9/11 didn’t happen while Clinton was president – oh, the brilliance we would’ve seen, they swooned. As if it mattered. We needed the man in charge to stand and deliver – both in words and actions – the message that America, however benevolent, was still willing to crush its enemies when forced to do so. Bush did just that. I’m convinced that Clinton would have done the right thing as well, albeit with more five dollar words, but I don’t lose sleep over the missed opportunity to cement his precious “legacy”.

George W. Bush isn’t concerned with how he is seen by the intellectual set – and yes, perhaps it’s to a fault. However, he is concerned with doing the right thing for America and the West as a whole, protecting our hard-won interests and ideals while others call for submission and surrender. Presidents Lincoln and Truman, to name a few, weren’t exactly universally loved and admired while they were in office, to say the least. Like them, Bush has been steadfast and has made the tough decisions at hand, and like them he will be respected and admired for it. Talk about last laughs.

Choke on THAT, Soros.

Jun 1, 2008 - 3:29 pm 7. Barry Dauphin:

Roger,

You’ve long raised the issue of the weak communications process from this White House. Well, Scotty too hottie is another piece to that puzzle. With friends like McClellan, who needs enemies.

I guess Bush could take one page from the Obama playbook—throw more people under the bus.

Jun 1, 2008 - 3:29 pm 8. TerryeL:

I don’t think I would put Miers or Gonzales in the same category as Scott McClellan. Miers did her job well and Gonzales never betrayed the President, for self aggrandizement or anything else.

Bush has had 4 press secretaries and three of them were very good, then there is this stinker. I guess I that is just the odds.

My understanding is that there is nothing new here, no sources or documentation. And I find the idea that Bush was more interested in creating democracy than in going after wmd to be strange. It is called Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush never hid the fact that he wanted to create representative government in the Arab world.

I also think we have had quite enough of this hindsight nonsense, both administrations, Clinton’s and Bush’s said things about Saddam that many disagree with today. But it is not as if it was not prevailing sentiment of the times. So maybe we need to get off this loop. I feel like I am watching some sort of Bush bashing Groundhog Day movie.

Jun 1, 2008 - 4:14 pm 9. TerryeL:

And lest we forget, every president has someone do something like this. Reagan had Regan. Bill had George whatshisface. But overall Bush’s people have been more loyal and less inclined to end up indicted. Libby got in trouble, but when you look at Nixon and Watergate and Reagan and Iran Contra and Clinton and everything…a lot less administration officials have been busted. So far.

Jun 1, 2008 - 4:17 pm 10. Terry Gain:

McLellan was out of his depth as Press Secretary. As a supporter of Bush I often cringed when I heard him speak. We can add him to the many (in fact the vast majority) of the uninformed who would have preferred that Saddam be left alone to pursue nuclear weapons – as he would have – as surely as Bill Clinton pursues ass when not watched.

Jun 1, 2008 - 5:53 pm 11. seePea:

I don’t think this Pres. Bush will be considered “great”. Yes, I agree that it will eventually be realized that he got the one most important thing correct. But other issues he got either not at all or wrong. Plus , even in the one thing he got correct he dropped the ball when it came to AlFatah, Hamas and the right of Israel to exist and defend itself passively AND aggressively.

Jun 1, 2008 - 6:12 pm 12. tioedong:

what is it with press secretaries?
DeeDee Myers husband is going after Bill Clinton in Vanity Fair…

Jun 1, 2008 - 7:05 pm 13. TerryeL:

see Pea:

I disagree. I do not know whether Bush will be seen as great or not. But he has without a doubt been the most proIsraeli president in recent history. To say he did not get it right on Israel’s right to exist in any way is just not right.

I am not sure that greatness in the sense we once thought of it is even possible.

BTW, what was he supposed to do about Fatah and Hamas? I mean really?

Jun 1, 2008 - 7:38 pm 14. TerryeL:

This has been Bush’s curse, people on the right say he did not do enough and people on the left say he did too much. Maybe it is the rest of us who bear some responsibility as well.

Jun 1, 2008 - 7:40 pm 15. Rick Z:

Scott McLellan will go down as the Chico Esquella (author of “Bad Things About the Mets”) of the Bush Administration.

Jun 1, 2008 - 10:02 pm 16. seePea:

What should have President Bush done about Hamas and Fatah ?!? Well for starters, how about not give them money as long as they sent rockets into the rest of Israel? Telling them that being ‘Juden Frei’ is not an indication of accepting Israel or being willing to coexist with Israel. Branding them as terrorist until they stopped sending rockets and suicide bombers into the rest of Israel.

Jun 1, 2008 - 11:19 pm 17. TerryeL:

seepea:

You do not know what you are talking about. The United States has always considered Hamas a terrorist group and George Bush would not even be in the same room with Arafat. And right now there are more Israelis who are willing to negotiate with these groups, so do not act as if the entire fate of Israel rests with the United States or this American president. If Obama wins the next election they might found out just what a friend to them Bush really was.

Jun 2, 2008 - 4:13 am 18. Lem:

I was never impressed with general McClellan. In fact, he was really lousy. When it came to Iraq it was really Rumsfeld that spoke for the White House.

Jun 2, 2008 - 6:29 am 19. Wellspring:

Actually, I think I’ll eventually read it– in a library.

What precisely is he saying? Many “tell-all” books turn out to not be presented accurately in the media.

Plus, whatever your views of his policy and strategic decisions, I think everyone has to admit that George W Bush is one of the worst communicators of the modern era. I used to fantasize in my cubicle about how great it would be to have a president who was just great policy and NO media operation at all. GWB is a bitter lesson that you need salesmanship to go with your product, triply so in politics.

So the perspective of the guy who ran the President’s media operation would be very valuable. Whether he has an axe to grind or not, he was there and we can tease out his and the President’s mistakes for the future. Whatever happens this election, odds are that there will eventually be a republican president again, and I for one would love the next Presidency to avoid the mistakes of the current one.

Jun 2, 2008 - 6:35 am 20. RattlerGator:

Wellspring: Plus, whatever your views of his policy and strategic decisions, I think everyone has to admit that George W Bush is one of the worst communicators of the modern era.

I emphatically disagree. Clearly, that is the present conventional wisdom. However, I suspect history will look poorly on the evident prejudice applied from the left and right to the President’s speech patterns — as if some genetic defect prevented many from engaging in serious consideration of WHAT was said as opposed to the desire for TV-perfect tonal pitch.

He’s not Ronald Reagan. Boo-freakin-hoo. And that applies to you, too, Peggy Noonan! The man didn’t blink on the big issues of our time and he had to deal with punk ass surrender monkeys on the left and far too many on the right with a narrow vision that’s simply breathtaking.

I’m still waiting for the Republican version of the East and West Coast elites, bitch and moan freaks in their own right, (David Frum, Peggy Noonan, Rich Lowry, etc.) to detail what was so damn bad about Harriet Miers and Albert Gonzales — other than them engaging their jobs in ways contrary to the personal likes of said elites.

Jun 2, 2008 - 7:29 am 21. Captain Hate:

Rattler,

Although I agree with much of what you wrote, I think Bush has done poorly on keeping the population informed on the progress of the GWOT. Granted he would get skewered for a lot of what he would have said (and particularly how he said it) but that’s a necessary function for him to perform and one that I feel he left undone. Unfortunately you have to deal with the citizens in ways that you point out the obvious: When Churchill rallied England when it was getting pounded, did he really say anything that people couldn’t get from the scads of motivational speakers that exist today? Or that is beyond the capability of Bush’s writers now that the goof McClellan is gone? I think had he done a better job of communicating that the national opinion of the war and his approval ratings would both be higher.

Jun 2, 2008 - 8:06 am 22. Wellspring:

Captain Hate: I think had he done a better job of communicating that the national opinion of the war and his approval ratings would both be higher.

Precisely.

He didn’t have to be a Reagan-quality communicator– but strong communications skills ARE a leadership function, and they ARE a part of the President’s job description, and they HAVE been very lacking in this Presidency. I’m not waiting for the media to do us any favors, but there have been enough missteps and strategic blunders in the Public Relations department that I cheerfully stand by what I said. If we’re to hold or retake the Presidency, we need to realistically assess how we’ve done and see what went well, and what we can improve.

Of course, the media and the Democrats will attack us. That’s what they do. It’s no use crying into our cheerios, “It’s not faaaair!!” The President’s job is to win despite opposition.

Pretending that everything went perfectly, that there’s no need to assess our strengths and weaknesses and attack one another as heretics is exactly the formula we need to lose and lose big this November.

Jun 3, 2008 - 6:40 am 23. Oyster:

I seem to remember quite clearly the loads of sarcasm and complaints about Reagan’s communication skills along with bemoaning his level of intelligence throughout his presidency, especially from the left, but also from many on the right. Now, even life-long Democrats extol Reagan’s many virtues, most prominently his communication skills and vision. My how time can cloud our memories.

Yes, history will be kind to Bush. The war against Islamic fanatics has been the most talked about aspect of his presidency and will be in the future when looking back. It will cast a shadow over everything else.

Jun 3, 2008 - 8:30 am 24. Peg C.:

Read Feith’s book instead of that fool McClellan’s. Feith’s will live on and be studied long after McClellan and his book are dead. Douglas Feith’s and Andrew McCarthy’s books provide a roadmap of warnings, do’s and don’t’s for dealing with future attacks (and there will be); McClellan’s just provides all the don’t’s for future WH Press Secretary selection processes.

Jun 4, 2008 - 4:40 am

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