Monday, June 02, 2008

McClellan Surrenders His Only Qualification

Scott McClellan's tenure as Dubya's press secretary was at best undistinguished. Folks in the rarefied world of the Washington press corps came to the judgment that his primary qualification was loyalty to Bush.

His widely publicized book seems to confirm that, except that now he's caved on the loyalty. Reviewers and insiders are pretty clear on a couple of points: the book tells us nothing that we didn't already "know," and it entirely repeats the Democratic boilerplate that Bush's deputies did a bad thing with Valerie Plame.

Whether McClellan decided to take this tack because he wanted to make money on the book, because he wanted to gain standing with the left-looking media establishment, or simply because he is subject to the influences of his surroundings, no human can know.

We cite two discussions of the book as most important. One is Bob Novak's. Novak is distinctly well suited to opine on this matter, as he published Richard Armitage's "leak" that Ms. Plame got her husband on the junket to Niger to investigate the yellowcake allegations. Novak lets loose on not just McClellan but also special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who continued his investigation even though he knew the leaker when his investigation began. As far as Novak is concerned, McClellan's book is rendered worthless by his studied refusal to acknowledge the factual situation of his narrative centerpiece.

The second comes from the editorial board of the WSJ. They contribute the underreported but vitally important information that McClellan's book is being published by a company controlled by George Soros. SWNID dislikes conspiracy theories but is sometimes attracted to the notion that rich people of ambition can finance campaigns of disinformation. Soros has so many fingers in so many PACs, media ventures and other propaganda instruments that one can hardly resist blaming him for much of the nonsensical tenor of present political discourse.

We will guess that McClellan's book may represent the nadir of Bush's reputation. While the book is being published, the fortunes of the war and the economy seem to be turning positively, perhaps decisively. In a few years, McClellan's book may well be remainedered off to people who want it as a historical curiosity, testimony to the disconnect between conventional wisdom and empirical realities in the last months of this presidency.

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