From the appropriately brutal media analysis of Scotty's confessions, it appears that Dubya's inner sanctum is stunned to hear their former puppet gnawing on the hand that fed him. The offense is great, given the care and feeding that Scotty and others in his family enjoyed under Dubya's roof for more than a decade:
Born in Austin, Texas, McClellan is the youngest son of Carole Keeton Strayhorn, former Texas State Comptroller and former 2006 independent Texas gubernatorial candidate, and attorney Barr McClellan. McClellan's brother Mark McClellan headed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and formerly was Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration. McClellan is the grandson of the late W. Page Keeton, longtime Dean of the University of Texas School of Law and renowned expert in tort law.
After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, where he was president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Texas Alpha Chapter, McClellan was the three-time campaign manager for his mother. In addition, he worked on political grassroots efforts and was the Chief of Staff to a Texas State Senator.
Karen Hughes, Governor Bush's communications director, hired McClellan to be Bush's deputy press secretary. McClellan served as Governor Bush's traveling press secretary during the 2000 Presidential election. McClellan became White House Deputy Press Secretary in 2003. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, who stepped down as White House Press Secretary on July 15, 2003. McClellan announced his resignation as Press Secretary on April 19, 2006.
I say that the media analysis is appropriately brutal because what Scotty did is damnable. His job as administration spokesman is to answer questions put to him on behalf of the American people by the Washington press corps. I know of no Americans who ask the administration to lie to them. The patent expectation is that the administration -- and specifically, Scotty -- would answer questions truthfully, straightforwardly. Scotty didn't do that. While he was never as transparently malevolent as grand vizier Ari Fleischer, but the evidence of Scotty's skill and stamina as Dubya's puppet is voluminous. In fact, a great book -- or set of books -- might be written on the combined sleights-of-hand of Fleischer, McClellan, Snow and Perino. But here are just three examples:
When Dubya didn't want Americans to focus on his administration's attempt to win exemptions to federal laws banning torture, Scotty fell in line, ducking and weaving through journalist Helen Thomas's repeated attempts to get a clear and straightforward answer on November 8, 2005:
Q I'm asking about exemptions.
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me respond. And he would never authorize the use of torture. We have an obligation to do all that we can to protect the American people. We are engaged --
Q That's not the answer I'm asking for --
MR. McCLELLAN: It is an answer -- because the American people want to know that we are doing all within our power to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. There are people in this world who want to spread a hateful ideology that is based on killing innocent men, women and children. We saw what they can do on September 11th --
Q He didn't ask for an exemption --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are going to --
Q -- answer that one question. I'm asking, is the administration asking for an exemption?
MR. McCLELLAN: I am answering your question. The President has made it very clear that we are going to do --
Q You're not answering -- yes or no?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, you don't want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen, and I'm going to tell them the facts.
Q -- the American people every day. I'm asking you, yes or no, did we ask for an exemption?
MR. McCLELLAN: And let me respond. You've had your opportunity to ask the question. Now I'm going to respond to it.
Q If you could answer in a straight way.
MR. McCLELLAN: And I'm going to answer it, just like the President -- I just did, and the President has answered it numerous times.
Q -- yes or no --
MR. McCLELLAN: Our most important responsibility is to protect the American people. We are engaged in a global war against Islamic radicals who are intent on spreading a hateful ideology, and intent on killing innocent men, women and children.
Q Did we ask for an exemption?
MR. McCLELLAN: We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people.
Q Is that the answer?
MR. McCLELLAN: We are also going to do so in a way that adheres to our laws and to our values. We have made that very clear. The President directed everybody within this government that we do not engage in torture. We will not torture. He made that very clear.
When Dubya didn't want Americans to focus so much on the mastermind of September 11 -- still at large in the world years after that event -- Scotty fell in line and didn't immediately recognize the madman's name when asked on January 4, 2006:
Q Second question: The President's speech today at the Pentagon as far as terrorism and fighting terrorism is concerned, do you think that Osama bin Laden is still in -- is running the al Qaeda business?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, who?
When Dubya didn't want Americans to focus on the ongoing humiliation of his war on Iraq, three years after he stood under his famous "Mission Accomplished" banner, Scotty fell in line and tried valiantly to deflect legitimate questions about that debacle on May 1, 2006, instead blaming Democrats for "misrepresenting and distorting the past":
Q I'm asking you, based on a reporter's curiosity, could he stand under a sign again that says, "Mission Accomplished"?
MR. McCLELLAN: Now, Peter, Democrats have tried to raise this issue, and, like I said, misrepresenting and distorting the past --
Q This is not --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- which is what they're doing, does nothing to advance the goal of victory in Iraq.
Q I mean, it's a historical fact that we're all taking notice of --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the focus ought to be on achieving victory in Iraq and the progress that's being made, and that's where it is. And you know exactly the Democrats are trying to distort the past.
Q Let me ask it another way: Has the mission been accomplished?
MR. McCLELLAN: Next question.
Q Has the mission been accomplished?
MR. McCLELLAN: We're on the way to accomplishing the mission and achieving victory.
These are example of pathology, of pathological lying, an affliction that brings us back to the 12-step program that Scotty has undertaken.
The originial 12 steps as published by AA are these, but I've substituted "pathological lying" for the reference to alcohol:
1. We admitted we were powerless over pathological lying—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Scotty says he was "disillusioned" by his experience working for Dubya, which appears to be his rationalization for all the lying he did. Whereas he once consider Dubya to be the power greater than himself, Scotty appears to have discovered his earning potential as an author and public speaker, and it is indeed a power greater than himself. While it may never restore him to sanity, it will clearly make him wealthy, and wealth buys a lot of artificial sanity.
But as no one but William Kristol would pay someone to extol the virtues of Dubya's legacy -- which guarantees that Ari Fleischer will always have a supply of nickels and dimes -- Scotty had to come up with a different shtick if he hoped to realize all that earning potential. Hence, he would turn his life over to telling the truth -- or, more appropriately, what the book-buying public understood the truth to be!
And to begin this journey, he likely initiated a searching and fearless Lexus-Nexus inquiry of all Dubya's pronouncements as presented in the voice of Scotty McClellan. Then:
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Writing a book satisfied all of these necessities. It represents his admission to God and everybody the exact nature of his lies, it submits his heart to the book-buying public with these admissions laid bare, and it asks -- sort of -- for forgiveness. And twenty-nine bucks. The beauty of Scotty's 12-step program is that the list of all persons he'd harmed was so long -- it includes every man, woman and child in America -- and surely many of them would be willing to part with twenty-nine bucks to read his amends to them!
With the exception of a single bump in the road, the rest is easy:
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Publishing a book about his lies on Dubya's behalf would benefit everyone in the world EXCEPT Dubya and his minions. At first, I wondered how long Scotty puzzled over how to get around this snag, but media analysis of the book answered the question for me; Scotty's solution was to publish a bunch of photographs of himself WITH Dubya in the middle of the book. Everyone knows that Dubya only looks at the pictures in books, so he'll likely think this is another gospel of his praise. And so long as Dubya's cool with it, Scotty must have figured, the rest of his minions can go to hell. After all, none of them are putting scratch in his pocket any more. Problem solved.
As for the rest, Scotty's media blitz likely qualifies as continuing to take personal inventory and promptly admitting wrongdoing. He's getting a lot of practice at it. And the last two -- the prayin' and meditatin' and improving the blah-ble-blah -- okeydoke: All Scotty needs to know is, Would you like this book inscribed to you, or is it for a friend?
Right.
And people will buy it.
My take?
What a crock.
In expecting many gullible readers to buy his book, Scotty is crassly hoping that many of us to forget what we knew all along. Namely, that a great many of us knew in 1999 and 2000 -- and said out loud -- that Dubya was unfit to take our highest office, for a host of reasons. And subsequently, that in his role as chief apologist and denier, Scotty covered, lied, misled and discolored for his boss, in essence calling the rest of us liars and fools for believing as we did.
Now that he's admitted his complicity in Dubya's games, he wants absolution -- and 29 bucks each -- from the very people he made out to be liars and fools -- including bloggers -- from the time Dubya held office in Austin through the years he's occupied the Oval.
The facts that we've collected from many, many, many other sources demonstrate these principles: We were right to disbelieve Dubya and his minions, including Scotty, in 1999, and 2000, and 2001, and 2002, and 2003, and 2004, and 2005, and 2006, and 2007.
And we are right in 2008 to leave both Dubya and Scotty, and the many others who swirled in the cesspool of their own creation, to hang now by their own petards.
If Scotty wants to make amends to the American people, here's what he can do:
One, write no more books, and accept no more invitations to appear on television, forever. He has already used and misused the mass media enough.
Two, donate every nickel of the proceeds from this present book to Cindy Sheehan and her organization.
Three, reimburse the federal government -- and us taxpayers -- every cent he was paid during his years as Dubya's liar, deputy liar, assistant deputy liar, or towel boy to the assistant deputy liar. With interest.
Four, withdraw from the lecture circuit, return any proceeds he's made from speaking engagements since leaving the White House, and decline any future invitations to speak about anything related to his service to Dubya.
Finally, having returned all wealth he's accumulated from his pathological lying for Dubya, and accepting no future wealth from it, Scotty can do as any other average American does today: Get a day job, maybe even a night job too, and pay taxes.
Not only will I not buy this professional liar's book now, I will not buy this professional liar's book when it reaches the remainders bin. And while no one I know would be dumb enough to give me a copy, IF I'm ever given a copy, I'll happily give it back to the giver. Given the number of lives that have suffered as a result of Scotty's collaboration with his Liar-in-Chief, I'll be happy to let their mea culpas rot by the side of the road.
Have a confession? Give it to the judge. Or Jeff Gannon.
1 comment:
Great work.
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