ATTACKING McCLELLAN IS SIMPLY SHOOTING THE MESSENGER By John Landsberg, �Bottom Line Communications, 2008
Bush administration loyalists are in high gear blasting former Press Secretary Scott McClellan and his new book (see story below). Conservative talk show hosts and others have pilloried McClellan on a 24/7 basis.
Let's attempt to answer some of the questions posed about McClellan, his book and the duties of spokesperson:
Q: Bill O'Reilly said that he doubts the book will sell only a few hundred copies. Is that true? A: It is already the top selling book on Amazon. It is an instant best-seller. Sorry, Bill.
Q: Why didn't McClellan speak up and tell President Bush and his advisors he did not like their policies? A: His job was to put a positive spin on the administration and its policies. He was not hired to formulate policies, but to try and explain them to the news media. Can you imagine McClellan telling VP Dick Cheney that he disagrees with him? He would be gone in a day.
Q: Why didn't he wait until the President's term in office was over before writing the book? A: The minute the President's term in office expires every Tom, Dick and Martha in the administration will be writing their personal memoirs. By that time no one will care and no one will buy their books. If you want to make money this is the time.
Q: Didn't McClellan disparage Richard Clarke in 2004 when Clarke wrote a book criticizing President Bush? A: Sure! That's what spokespeople do. His job was to defend the administration.
Q: Wasn't he a lousy press secretary? A: McClellan had to deal with some of the most difficult media issues in presidential history, including a controversial war. Three years as a presidential press secretary is like 15 years in a normal position. Few people complained when he was taking arrows for President Bush and others.
Q: Should McClellan have shown more loyalty to the President? A: Probably. But in this day and age it seems as if folks like McClellan should have signed some form of non-disclosure agreement when they join the administration. In a time when a video company sells Wal-Mart's internal videos on the Internet and is applaudedit is difficult to talk about loyalty.
Q: Any final thoughts? A: A spokesman is there to put a happy face on a business or government entity. He/she does not create the policies, but must explain them as positively as possible to the media and general public. The Public Relations Society of America says PR folks are never supposed to lie or mislead the public. One commentator says that would be like saying a group like the "Burglars of America" should have as its slogan, "Thou Shalt Not Steal."
Scott McClellan
Exclusive: McClellan whacks Bush, White House By: Mike Allen, Politico.com May 28, 2008 Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush �veered terribly off course,� was not �open and forthright on Iraq,� and took a �permanent campaign approach� to governing at the expense of candor and competence. Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled �What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington�s Culture of Deception� (Public Affairs, $27.95): � McClellan charges that Bush relied on �propaganda� to sell the war. � He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war. � He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be �badly misguided.� � The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them � and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts. � McClellan asserts that the aides � Karl Rove, the president�s senior adviser, and I. Lewis �Scooter� Libby, the vice president�s chief of staff � �had at best misled� him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame�s identity. A few reporters were offered advance copies of the book, with the restriction that their stories not appear until Sunday, the day before the official publication date. Politico declined and purchased �What Happened� at a Washington bookstore. The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as �authentic� and �sincere,� is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected. McClellan was one of the president�s earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait. Instead, McClellan�s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House �spent most of the first week in a state of denial,� and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped. But he writes that he later was told that �Karl was convinced we needed to do it � and the president agreed.� �One of the worst disasters in our nation�s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush�s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush�s second term,� he writes. �And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.� McClellan, who turned 40 in February, was press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006. An Austin native from a political family, he began working as a gubernatorial spokesman for then-Gov. Bush in early 1999, was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and was chief deputy to Press Secretary Ari Fleischer at the beginning of Bush�s first term. LINK TO REST OF ARTICLE: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10649.html
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