Comments (45)

Hello all. I'm new here and it seems fascinating.


[url=http://bigsiteofamazingfacts.com]Amazing Facts[/url]

Kenneth, you said:

Americans are pretty darn stupid, here is some evidence:

#1. George Bush got elected in 2000.
#2. George Bush got re-elected in 2004 by an even larger margin.
#3. Over half of Americans don't believe in evolution.
#4. Belief in religions is negatively correlated to education, and America is one of the most religious western countries on earth.

My reply:
#1 and #2 I will grant are all too true, to the sorrow of America and the world.
#3 is true to a great extent, but I tend to doubt the percentage. I will willingly be corrected.
#4 - True, if you consider right-wing religious schools and the persistent attempts to replace evolution with creationism in public schools. Not successful, so far, thank God. But remember that Catholic schools here, and there are many, all teach evolution, not creationism. BTW, I am not Catholic.

Gee Zzim:

I'm happy I got a response from you. On the point of getting these buffons out of town, I refer not to particular individuals but more so to the mentality that influences certain public policy makers to advocate positions, the framework of which are constructed in ideas of greed and self enrichment and lacks the perspective of what is good for the country as a whole.

Some of the WH defectors revelations suggest that certain members of the Bush Administration entered office with an agenda to increase profits for big oil (and perhaps themselves?)regardless of who or what had to be sacrificed. Such corruption has to be eliminated from the public arena through intelligent voting. This last batch of hoo-haws convinced the "values voter" that they had character. To many of us it was clear from the start that the one thing lacking most in this crew was character. Just look at the military record of those deciding to take the country to war. Indeed, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

But Zzim, I'm ready to forgive and forget all the while anticipating that we won't get fooled again. Do your homework America. Don't get fooled again. Let's make sure this time that compassion and unity are really features in the next president's administration and not just an advertising come on. Then Zzim, perhaps you and I can sit and enjoy a beer and stop all this wasteful bantering.

Here's to AFGANVET for his/her service to us all.

"Americans are smart enough to reject this form of blame deflection."

Americans and "smart" shouldn't be used in the same sentence.

Americans are pretty darn stupid, here is some evidence:

#1. George Bush got elected in 2000.
#2. George Bush got re-elected in 2004 by an even larger margin.
#3. Over half of Americans don't believe in evolution.
#4. Belief in religions is negatively correlated to education, and America is one of the most religious western countries on earth.

Scott's rehabilitative book reminds me of no one more than Chuck Colson of President Nixon's CReEP. After Colson's miraculous conversion from dirty trickster and legal obfuscator, he was publicly repentant ad nauseum. And he made a small fortune (too bad his lawyers got it all).
You can't tell if Scottie's conversion is spiritual, or based on greed and a new-found strategy for mining his money-making potential. I wouldn't even put it past the White House to be behind the book only to rally the faithful against a traitor in their midst. Man, do these guys have me paranoid or not?
Allowing the best of motives for his work, I think McClellan has done the American people a great service in exposing the truly and dangerously weird mindset that pervades the Bush White House, but there is not much that is actually NEW in the book - it is mostly confirmation of what we alrady KNEW but have largely refused to accept. I have a feeling that we're going to allot Scott his fifteen minutes and then ignore the lesson entirely.
On an unrelated note: Cordell Hull said "Either War Is Finished, Or We Are." Still true to this day, only more so.

i read your article and either i'm a little confused ... or perhaps you are a little confused...it would seem that what we are talking about fundamentally is the truth... the main thing with the truth that matters is that some how , some way it makes its appearance and enlightens us all. you appear to be more concearned about what the envelope looks like, when it was mailed, who it was addressed to instead of what the actual message is. perhaps you... have may have lost your way or perhaps you are trying to lead others astray on purpose because you were fooled .. either way when the truth finally makes its presence known we all should welcome it and most of all make good use of it to make sure similar mistakes do not happen again. in real life it is not perfection that we should seek it is lessons learnened and improving our world. i didn't hear you actually disagree with anything the gentleman said in his book only that you fault him for not speaking sooner. i guess my question to you was where where you and what were you saying. i have a large collection of paintings i painted while watching c-span that recorded pretty much the same thing 5 years ago that he is say today. but i'm just a dyslexic artist not fancy religion scholor writer or leader.

I am not a fan of Scott McClellan or any one else in the Bush administration for that matter. But criticizing McClelland for coming out now instead of when he was Press Secretary doesn't make much sense to me. If he would have opened up while still in the White House he would have been fired and most likely have a minimal opportunity to tell his story before being attacked like Joe Wilson and have his personal life messed with. Remember, wives and secret agents are fair game for the Bush crew. Who knows what Scott would have faced if he even opened his mouth in the White House.

The fact is he still has the rest of his life to face. The easy road would have been to stay quiet and take one of those great lobbying jobs that so many ex-politicos take when they leave "public service." Writing the book is his life insurance policy. The odds are that the bulk of his productive years are now behind him even though he is still a young guy. Who is going to hire him now. He has given his career away. And as I said, he didn't have to let this out, his life would be much easier without this.

The book gives him a mouthpiece that will last for a while. The first predictions were that it wouldn't sell outside the Beltway, would dry up in a couple of days, and then we wouldn't hear from McClennan again. It may go a couple more weeks, maybe even a couple of months. Then it will be over and what does he have to look forward to.

I have heard it said quite a bit that this is stuff we already knew anyway. It's what we THOUGHT we knew along with a bunch of other hunches that we have; like the whole Iraq thing was to get vengeance on Saddam for trying to get to HW, or that we went to war to cause oil panics and shortages to drive up profits for Bush and Cheney's oil mogul pals. My favorite is that I wish someone would write a book about that meeting that Cheney has with all the Oil Company CEOs and what they decided there has fixed prices to make more profit than at any time in the history of profits. Wouldn't you just love to know what was said there that was so important or illegal that the Vice President refused to have the meeting minutes distributed or seen outside of the meeting. You can be sure all that was talked about was highly beneficial for all American taxpayers and Cheney just didn't want his Teddy Bear demeanor to get out to the American people.

So for me, let the books keep coming and let us pay the book price to find out what our government is really up to. And hey, if we're lucky, we won't have to buy the book. We'll hear the good parts on the evening news.

We would all be wiser to remember these words: "In any hierarchy, the leader can always delegate authority, but can never delegate responsibility". The 'Executive Branch' of our government is just such a hierarchy, the leader was never Scott McClellan.

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took McClellan to task beautifully (and more effectively than any other interviewer has), not allowing him to call the administration's willful manipulation of truth anything short of what it actually was/is. I would point out that in politics and in life, timing is everything. If McClellan had had the capacity to do the honorable thing while he still worked for the WH, 1) nobody would have paid any attention, because 2) his superiors would have easily destroyed his credibility and spit him out on the compost pile. He wasn't a major player--nothing more than a mouthpiece, and a battered one at that after the Plame affair. It is clear that to this day, McClellan really doesn't understand how profoundly corrupt and unethical these people are, and still has "affection and respect" for W. Now he's on the outside, and has demonstrated that the administration badly underestimated who he was. Despite being a flawed character, his story is resonating in ways it never could have before.

Tim, the more I think about your article the more I think you're spinning the reader like the Bush Administration spun the media for years. Your assertion that "both the likely nominees for President are where they are largely because they have convinced us that they will tell us the truth about ourselves and about where they want to take us–White House bubble or not" is flat out wrong. Both McCain and Obama have gone back on their words already during this campaign. Obama for his issues with his preacher and church; McCain for flip-flopping on his support for the troops, and his newly found support of the Bush tax cuts. Goodness knows, your statement is wrong Tim. Both candidates have already given me ample reason to keep my allegiance close to the vest; they have not given me reason to trust them fully. I will decide on whom to trust more based on my ability to parse through the crap that their campaigns will be doling out over the next few months. But, don't accuse me of being naive. Please stop perpetuating this culture of spin.

Tim, the more I think about your article the more I think you're spinning the reader like the Bush Administration spun the media for years. Your assertion that "both the likely nominees for President are where they are largely because they have convinced us that they will tell us the truth about ourselves and about where they want to take us–White House bubble or not" is flat out wrong. Both McCain and Obama have gone back on their words already during this campaign. Obama for his issues with his preacher and church; McCain for flip-flopping on his support for the troops, and his newly found support of the Bush tax cuts. Goodness knows, your statement is wrong Tim. Please stop perpetuating this culture.

There is no question that the media gurus are desperately doing the cya thing. They want to bury McClellan because he didn't say I'm sorry. I haven't heard any of the media gurus who now are telling us they knew all the time what McClellan is saying now and didn't ask the penetrating questions they should have asked at the time, saying they are sorry. Instead they paddled along in their leaky canoes reporting what they now say they knew was phony. Now that their canoes have sunk to the bottom the media is screaming for
Mclellans head. You can't have it both ways US media McClellan is a slime because he didn't speak out at the time while the US media was buying everything he was saying. That is Slime.

I'll take McClellan at his word over the lying, fundamentalist kook the religious wrong imposed upon us for 8 years. Don't even think of comparing "spin" here Tim. George Bush and his cadre of liars and traitors have spun us to the reality of over 4,000 Americans dead in Iraq, and thousands maimed for life. When our troops invaded the country, gas was $1.23 a gallon. Your "blessed" hero has bankrupted the economy, ignored environmental disasters and the suffering they visted upon real Americans, like the poor folks of New Orleans, and acted surprised a couple months back when a reporter asked him to comment on the impending summer gas proces of $4.00 a gallon (it's way over that now). Millions of us has had it with fundamentalist cowards like you who take refuge behind a crucifix, are obsessed by homophobia and Islam, and can't wait til the "end of days" (so you don't have to "tolerate" the rest of us non-believers). Stick to what you know ... nothing. It's 2008 and your 15 minutes of fame is over. Good riddance. It was a long, painful time with the "culture of life" at the helm.

Hi Tim, The article you posted makes some fine points from a religion point of view but it is naïve at best and seems to want to point the American people to blame Scott, rather than the people who continually lied to him, pushed him to lie and maintained a culture in which lying to the public and other politicians as the norm for communication. Sure, ideally, Scott would be clear-headed enough to say ‘No, I want no part of this.’ And then leave his position and career behind.

I have personally been in similar situations and when I didn’t fall in line, I was fired for not allowing the company to steal over 2 million lines of software code clearly marked as copyrighted by a State level government. My career continues to suffer from this decision every time I go looking for a job because I have to explain why I left the company. The company ultimately did use the software code and made millions of dollars doing so but I am the one that will deal with the consequences for the remainder of my career in this field. If every person in the WH acts ethically and takes your recommendation, there would be no staff left to actually manage the country; at least in this Administration!

The bottom line here is this Tim. People are blaming the messenger that came to these realizations after leaving a culture based on deceit. The real problem is the liars that the American people elected twice. The real solution is dual impeachment of the two liars at the top; Bush and Cheney. Since it’s a bit late to do so, both should be taken into custody and face war crimes trials.

The real lasting effect of this is that Americans will take from this is the following: An American President can dissemble and lie outright to them to the extent that over 4,000 of our fine men and women died. The world will take away similar plus the deaths of nearly 100,000 innocents and the maiming of so many more in our ruthless bombing of Iraq. However, having sex in the Oval, is more important to deal with than the liars who lead us and kill so many others in our names. If one believes in Karma, what these men did to others will come back to haunt us well after they have gone on to live in luxury for the remainder of their lives.

Is that really what you are encouraging? In reality, yes. In YOUR bubble of religiosity, I would guess you can’t see that as much just as Scott couldn’t when he was at the WH.

ZZIM, you're right. How could I not see it the way you see it? McClellan is only doing this for the money. He was a good soldier during his tenure at the White House and is only cashing in because his publisher made him do it. Nothing he says is truthful. This Administration always has our best interests in mind. And those 16 words that made it into the President's State of the Union speech was an honest mistake. And Scooter Libbly going to jail for releasing the name of a CIA operative is a hoax on trumped up charges. And the President's Daily Brief (PDB) for August 6, 2001 containing a two-page section entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US" wasn't clear enough for these guys to actually anticipate an Al Qaeda attack using hijacked planes. And who could have anticipated the levys in New Orleans breaking or the need to help the people who lived there quickly? These guys are competent and don't lie to us, or their own mouthpieces. You're right. I should have seen it through your eyes.

Seems to me that Scott McClellan wasn't the only spokesperson. Cheney was speaking for the military-industrial interests (Halliburton); Bush for the fundamentalist Christians and the oil industry. Fortunately, people can have a change of heart. As one former CEO told me, "I was not in favor of environmental issues when I was in business".

Seems to me that Scott McClellan wasn't the only spokesperson. Cheney was speaking for the military-industrial interests (Halliburton); Bush for the fundamentalist Christians and the oil industry.

Fortunately, people can have a change of heart. As one former CEO told me, "I was not in favor of environmental issues when I was in business".

This article raises an interesting point. It's possible to be caught up in wrong - the purported "bubble", in this case - and still take responsibility after the fact. Erring and taking responsibility after the fact are not mutually exclusive. That's what sin and repentance are all about.

But I think there's something deeper going on here. McClellan's book is a revenge piece against the Bush administration which fired him. Read the op ed column in Monday's WP by McClellan's deputy at the time - I don't recall his name - who asks some very piercing questions based on his intimate knowledge of McClellan's mindset during the period his tell-all book covers. The implication is very clear that McClellan is being quite untruthful about the record. And he has been so without consulting his lieutenants as promised. If that's so then this is a case of present - not past - unrepentant sin that Mr. McClellan will have to deal with.

Doing the right thing isn't a question of perfection, it's the direction in which one is going. One can slip and fall, but then get back up. Mr. McClellan would have us believe that he slipped a few years ago but is atoning now, via his book. But there are those - and they are in positions to know - who believe his slip is in the present, not back then, and that as yet he hasn't even begun to recognize the need to get back up.

Who cares if Scott did not do anything about the lies and deception from Bush when he was there?

Bush still lied us into the deaths of tens of thousands.

lulu.com/dshollar

Wow,so You are "disturbed" that Scott McClellan is accusing George Bush of willful deception? And, further you state, maybe Scott should be telling the truth - and that He also make sure to tell the world that He "has made the mistake?"
Timothy, you've got the wrong man.
It's Bush that The American people want to state clearly that HE has made the mistake - That HE perpetuates willful deception and that He needs to start to tell the truth.
So what if Scott waited - does that somehow change the real truth?

I disagree with you when you say the following: "The danger of accepting McClellan’s spin is that we come to believe that our system is responsible for our problems, that no one can be trusted, that people of authority are hopelessly corrupt." That's your interpretation of his spin; my interpretation is that he was surrounded by people who were corrupt. If it was truly the culture, he wouldn't have been able to name names. He did; and he is merely confirming the hypocrisy that many suspected all along. I suggest that your interpretation needs to remember the age old adage: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Lets get real here. McClellan is getting revenge. Something happened after he left the White House. He lost a job opportunity or got screwed some other way by the chimp and Rove. We will never know what the screwing was because McClellan will spill the beans because it will ruin his gig. Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Libby will not spill the beans because it would absolutely make the look even worse as human beings than they already are. He probably pissed them off somehow, and they got revenge after he left the white house. Remember revenge is Bushs' political tool of choice. He is taking out his pound of flesh on Rove, Cheney, Libby, and Bush because they first forced him out and second screwed him over once he was out. They ruined his reputation while he had the job and did nothing to ammend that once he left the white house.

I was raised to believe, and it has held true, that you can usually judge a man by those he surrounds himself with. So, when you surround yourself with untrustworthy people who are willing to do or say whatever is necessary to attain the groups goals, don't act so surprised when they do or say whatever is necessary to secure their own goals.

Mwick: I am paying attention. In his book he CLAIMS he was lying then. In your opinion, he is smart to CLAIM he was lying then because he can make a lot of money and it doesn't cost him anything except his reputation. Very astute, you're getting there.

Also Mwick, perhaps you are the one not paying attention. George Bush & Company are not running for reelection. The McCain administration will likely be completely different.

Zzim said:

Why are so many people taking this story seriously? Either the guy was lying then or he's lying now. If you write an entire newspaper article assuming one or the other, you take a big risk with your credibility. And as an opinion writer, credibility is really all you've got to sell.

Seems Zzim is not paying attention. By virtue of writing the book, McClelland admits he lied then. In my opinion, he was smart to capitalize on the error without paying a price for his part in deceiving the American people. Its time for the electorate to extract its pound of flesh and run these buffoons out of town. And for those who put them in office, please do us all a favor and stay away from the election polls this November.

Mr. Mark asked me a question:

Let me ask you, ZZim, at your current job, do you confront your boss at every opportunity when she/he does something that you find questionable, or do you hold your tongue and hope things somehow work out for the best?

=========================
Reply: Hi Mark!

Actually I have been in that situation. It’s not a very comfortable one. Remember though, the boss has access to far more information than I have at my disposal. Sometimes he’s making decisions that I wouldn’t have, given the limited information that I have available. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in and it can certainly make a subordinate feel bad. I can relate to that. However, unless the boss crosses some sort of bright line, I need to support the team effort to the best of my abilities, giving the boss the benefit of the doubt. Clearly that’s what Scott did when he worked for the administration. And apparently that’s what he did in the first draft of his book. Apparently it was an ordinary and banal tale of regular people going about their business doing the best they could to muddle through difficult issues in difficult circumstances the best they knew how. Dull, dull, dull, dull.

However, when his publisher saw the book he realized that it wasn’t going to make a lot of money, unless… it was spiced up! And the best way to spice it up is to make it harshly critical of the administration. You don’t even need to think hard to do it that way, just sweep up all the harshly critical spin that the administration’s political enemies have placed on all its actions from day one, add them to the book and… voila – instant best-seller. Big paycheck. Lots of wealthy and glamorous admirers. Probly hot chicks, too. Some people are easy to corrupt. Scott saw the light.

Duh.

All things being equal, the secrecy of the Bush Administration itself has been checked. Has money been made on the deal, yes. Was Scotty exploited by the Whitehouse, yes. I don't see this book to be a revision of history as we have witnessed to date. It has not been written as tool of liability escapism. To me, it is a confession broadcast much like the lies broadcast not too long ago.

I wonder if Chaos comes from the Devil ? If Chaos started by Ben laden and perhaps 25 other individuals sparked a Chaos movement now ongoing in the Middle East ? Has a Chaos Model been incorporated into Democracy building ? And if so, how predictable is an ending to Chaos ? Is "shock-n-awe" a tool of Chaos much like the bombing of Laos and Cambodia in a different war ? Was not the Khymer Rouge a product of Chaos ? And did calmer heads prevail protecting Iraqis from Genocide ?

Bush cannot finish his own legacy goals. Someone promised work to contractors for at least 10 years not too long ago. Remember the Pentagon and American Officials making Press releases on Friday night just after primetime news ? Keeping America in the dark was a paradigm used by the Bush Administration and Scott was a "vital tool" of that process. Meanwhile the price per barrel increases focus on our "Vital Interests" Who made those interests so vital, after all wasn't you and me ?

"...Please to meet you, hope you guessed my name..."

Kevin Morgan wrote: "I am amazed that any Christian would condemn McClellan for what amounts to an act of repentance."

Whoa, wait just a darn minute! His "repentance" is being sold to the tune of millions of dollars. Should we always have to pay for the truth, especially when you consider these are government officials? Its bad enough they want amnesty to tell the truth to Congress, should we have to pay for the truth also? It is sickening, and, very unchristian to support this. It is not repentence, it is truth for sale. McClellen should be hauled before Congress and threatened with conspiracy for not speaking up sooner to witnessing possible crimes. Many in the Nixon WH were in similar positions, and many went to jail. Why is this administration getting a pass, and in McClellen's case, getting paid?

Its never too late to do the right thing. Rather than looking at the serious charges McClellan made against the Bush administration, Big Media decided to kill McClelland. What kind of message are we sending to whistle blowers? If you come clean we'll get you. There is no one who you can take the truth to without becoming the culprit yourself. I am amazed that any Christian would condemn McClellan for what amounts to an act of repentance. Better to keep it to yourself? Jesus!

Most importantly, no one is doing anything about Bush. McClelland is a reliable witness who was central to the crimes. Its the media. McClelland blew the whistle on them too. The watchdog is protecting our corrupt president from justice because they were partners in his crime.

Wow, big improvement Tim! You express yourself much better when you're writing about politics, you need to stop trying to write religion and move over to the Post comment pages instead. Your essay is crisp and vigorous and to the point, it's the kind of thing we've all had to say about pretty much everyone in the Bush administration for a long time.

I'm willing to cut McClellan some slack because I take him to be one of those phlegmatic political types that thinks like a Republican until some life crisis forces him to really think harder about everything, which he seems to now be doing. But yeah, at some point he needs to start pointing the finger at himself...

McClellan is just one more person in a long line of Bush insiders who left Bush's administration to write about what a dangerous idiot George W Bush is.

You could fill a library with books by these guys, who themselves were too spineless to stand up for what was right when it might have mattered.

So we can directly blame the untold number of innocent people that have died in Iraq, and the generation that we've shattered there, on the gang of idiots that voted for the chimp?

Works for me.

I don't understand why it's so hard for people to accept that:

-- Scott McClellan got involved with the wrong gang of Mafiosos.

-- He believed in their neo-con credo and lied for them for as long as he could possibly delude himself and not die of self-loathing.

-- He then finally came clean with what everyone with an ounce of intelligence already knew, and saw transparently, as soon as Bush began his run for President: The Bush administration is a gang of criminals.

This isn't rocket science. McClellan always looked like he was about to throw up on himself. Now we know why.

John Howard wrote: "...isn't it time we had a single,six-year term for our president? Then (s)he could focus on the job (s)he was elected to do."

You mean change the Consitution because Bush has abused his position and run his presidency improperly, with disregard for the oath he took? I'm sorry, there are better ways to deal with what this president did. Before you consider changing the Consitution why not try impeachment, why not forcefully bring in those who may have committed crimes before Congress to answer questions under oath and send the Sargent-at-Arms for those who snub their noses? And where is our free press? All they have given us is a WH statement. In the days of the real free press you could be sure every former Bush appointee would be questioned by reporters camped out on their front lawns, asking if what McClellen was saying was true or not. But all we get is a WH response while Bush sits back at Camp David on weekends chuckling that it was all so easy.

ZZIm sez:

"Either way, Scott's for sale. Either he lied for $80K a year a couple of years ago or he lied this year for $2 million. Now... if I had to guess which is more likely I think I'd have to guess the latter."

How hollow your guess rings in the ears of anyone who has worked a job and/or had a boss who was less than a stellar exemplar of truth and honesty.

Let me ask you, ZZim, at your current job, do you confront your boss at every opportunity when she/he does something that you find questionable, or do you hold your tongue and hope things somehow work out for the best?

Have you ever left a job because you just couldn't take the mendacity of the higher-ups any more, and if so, did you feel more ready or less ready to tell the truth about your old job to all who would listen once you left the job, or did you feel more like spouting the truth as you saw it while you were still employed at said job?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Why are so many people taking this story seriously? Either the guy was lying then or he's lying now. If you write an entire newspaper article assuming one or the other, you take a big risk with your credibility. And as an opinion writer, credibility is really all you've got to sell.

Either way, Scott's for sale. Either he lied for $80K a year a couple of years ago or he lied this year for $2 million. Now... if I had to guess which is more likely I think I'd have to guess the latter.

I'd say that Scott McClellan IS taking responsibility by stepping forward at this time. At least he's no Pat Buchanan who has kept quiet on the crimes of the Nixon administration for a good 30+ years.

McClellan may not have had the knowledge (or the guts) to step forward while he was still inside the WH, but at least he;s not waiting until after the election to give us a real sense of just how illegal and mendacious this WH is.

And, I must say, I find Tim Shriver's take on this subject naive, biased and unrealistic. At a time when not wearing a flag pin (made in China) on your lapel can be seen as being unpatriotic, when the media can question a candidate's suitability for office because some crazy priest went minstrel show, when the bush administration has a long record or lying and threatening people and their livelihoods, he takes McClellan to task for not coming out as whistle blower while still in the WH. Right.

Why not place the anger where it belongs, which is squarely on the shoulders of gw bush. Not Cheney. Not McClellan. Not the generals and the other WH surrogates. On bush, the "decider."

Kudos to McClellan. He's somewhat redeemed himself with his book. Let's hope that, "apres Scott, le deluge.."

It's an interesting article, really, and one that highlights a facet of North American culture that has been making headlines - whistleblowing.

These people who step up and say, "You can't do that. It's wrong.", they say these things to/about the corporations/companies/government agencies that employ them. Making these statements puts their livelihood, financial security, and perhaps even their health at risk.

Are these people merely "responsible", or is there a deeper, more courageous aspect to what they have decided to do? Can you blame Mr. McClellan for keeping mum on these issues? If he had come forward, would he be in the position he is now - able to tell his story, safe (or at least safer) from the repercussions?

While I can understand the point of the article - Mr. McClellan is just as culpable for the administration's activities as any other member of said administration. However, the U.S. people didn't elect HIM. The U.S. people elected his BOSSES, whom Mr. McClellan was lying for/about.

Take shots at this guy all you want. You won't find me defending him. He waited until after his tenure with the administration ended, and is now selling his story for personal financial gain, instead of for the good of the American people. Not much courage in that, for sure.

However, Mr. McClellan isn't the biggest problem either.

Craig

You're spinning McClellan's words with, "McClellan has confessed to either being a source of error himself or of being deceived by the most senior people in the White House."

He said he quit BECAUSE he was, "deceived by the most senior people in the White House." As a news person his integrity is his license to practice. When he lies because he was deceived it is as destructive as if he knew he was lying. Do you believe he was deceived or just lying? What does every other person alive believe? How does a news person recover from a lie told, say I was deceived? Only at God fearing FOX.

McClellan has done it at the best time possible by doing it now before ex president Bush gets canonized and he gets the burden of all that lying -a career stopper.

Our righteous president was put into office by the moral majority has nothing to worry about. All his supporters buy the notion that lies causing people to believe, have faith, be born again are moral. Lying is NOT one of the 7 deadly sins. Lying is a virtue to the religions, what sacraments are all about. It's all explained by the fact that IT was Lucifer, the biggest Devil and in turn the lying-est Devil of them all, the supernatural being that is the God of the father of Abraham... there in the burning bush.

Hey, I get it that many believe that he should have shown some super-human character and said at the podium that it was all BS, but I challenge any pundit to be able to do that and not be asking, "would you like fries with that?" immediately following.

Press Secretaries for this administration are vetted for loyalty, not character or honesty. In fact, those qualities would almost preclude you from being considered.

What amazes me, although not so much now that I have seen this tactic over and over before with this administration, is that they have, once again, successfully framed the issue as one of a lack of loyalty and candor on the offender's part instead of explaining what has now been exposed since Clarke wrote his book two years into the first adminstration: the games, politicization of intelligence and outright lies of this adminsitration.

This administration has always been about the message without the substance and it has always been about how they look, not what they do. Now that someone really close has, ONCE AGAIN, exposed them the media closes ranks because if we were to accept Clarke's, Tenet's, and all the other's revelations it would indict the media as co-conspirators who sold their souls in order to obtain access and SELL AIR TIME.

Please, let's talk about this President and the TRUTH of the criminal dysfunction of this administration and not about whether someone should have been more forthright when they we WORKING FOR THE PRESIDENT.

John, I didn't read your post before mine. I think it is an excellent idea.

Although, I wonder if "lame duck" would start to happen earlier and earlier, if there is such a thing as presidential influence.

Yes.

There are probably not a lot of things in the book (granted, I've not read it) that haven't been known, and revealed before, in other sources.

Why this particular administration official has more "believability" than any of the other officials doesn't make a lot of sense to me, except that he was the "mouthpiece" of the administration to the press. And the political timing could be more than a little suspect.

But, this man wasn't paid to think. He wasn't paid to be honest, or to be some moral compass, or to direct policy, or to let the administration know of his 'concerns' as in "gee, why didn't he let us know of his concerns before...." He was paid to feed the press, pure and simple.

Whether or not there is some point at which one cannot go further with deception, and ultimately have to live with oneself, is a good question. Call it sin, call it plain-and-simple dishonesty or the inability to support cognitive dissonance any further.

We had a whole slew of Generals retire from the Iraq situation. There are a number of prior adminstration officials who have their stories. Exactly what can be learned from his book? I don't know.

I don't see why the "bubble," in this instance, is any different from other group-think, group-deception situations. This is an administration that thrives on cognitive dissonance. Who wants to burst this bubble?

Dana Milbank writes, quoting McClellan:

"We set up a massive political operation that was aimed at really continuing that permanent-campaign way of governing," he informed the listeners of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."
and
"We got caught up in the excesses of the permanent-campaign culture in Washington, D.C.," he explained to viewers of NBC's "Today" show.

That being the case, and with the nonsensical election process we now have to endure, isn't it time we had a single,six-year term for our president? Then (s)he could focus on the job (s)he was elected to do.

"Americans are smart enough to reject this form of blame deflection."

That may very well be but we are also smart enought to know the truth when it smacks us upside the head like a brick. What is important here is the message.

Spin away, distort, redirect all you want, but the truth is the truth.

Timothy, has it occurred to you that Scott has always been for sale to the highest bidder? And someone bid high to get him to say a bunch of Democratic Party talking points were his private unscripted thoughts and innermost emotions?