The liberal blogs are abuzz today over the scathing, tell-all book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan. I've always had little respect for a person who uses people in high places to get where they want to be and then turn around and trade on the information gained from their insider access to harm the very people who entrusted them with confidential information, often for profit. That's exactly what Scott McClellan did to Bush and other members of his administration. Given his family roots, I never quite understood why Bush gave such important positions in his administration to Scott and his brother, Mark, former head of the FDA.
There's an old saying that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Scott's and Mark's mother is Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a former Austin mayor and Texas Comptroller. The thrice married Strayhorn bucked the Republican Party in 2006 and ran for governor as an independent. McClellan's father, Barr McClellan, is even more intriguing. Barr worked for Ed Clark's law firm in Austin, the firm of former President Lyndon Johnson, where he was supposedly afforded access to the secrets of the Johnson political machine. He left Clark's firm over a client dispute and later left the practice of law after a disciplinary complaint was filed against him concerning litigation against a bank, which he claimed called in an outstanding loan he had with the bank in an effort to bankrupt his law practice. In 2003, long after the deaths of Johnson, Clark and the rest of the gang, McClellan wrote a book, "Blood Money & Power", in which he lays out a conspiracy theory of how Johnson and Clark had President John F. Kennedy assassinated as well as other people who got in their way. A number of the Texas oilmen alleged to have had a role in the Kennedy assassination were big supporters of the Bushes in Texas politics.
As much as I deplore what McClellan is doing to Bush with this tell-all book, I have to say that Bush only has himself to blame. There were plenty of good reasons not to have anyone from the McClellan family as members of his administration. Aside from his family problems, he performed the job as ineptly as any White House press secretary I can recall. The Bushies now claim McClellan was fired from his job, but Bush kept the incompetent press secretary on for nearly three years before unloading him. It looks like he's determined to become for Bush what Dick Morris has become for the Clintons. McClellan will no doubt be offered plenty of paid gigs by left-leaning news organizations like MSNBC to make the obligatory GOP-bashing comments. I would simply ask my friends on the Left who want to believe everything he has to say about the Bush Adminstration if they are also willing to believe everything his father has written about how the father of the Great Society and not the CIA killed their beloved John F. Kennedy.
8 comments:
I believe in 'tell-all' books as much as I believe in alien cadavers being stored in Area 51, Bigfoot, Nessie, and Andre Carson.
Typical extreme conservative response -- Let's ignore the facts and start personally attacking those who do not agree with us. The Republican Party needs to take responsibility for what has happened to this country during the Bush years.
"The Republican Party needs to take responsibility for what has happened to this country during the Bush years."
We can do that as soon as the democrat party takes responsibility for Clinton’s skirt chasing as President while the whole world watched and his getting BJ's in the oval office from someone his daughters age and his lying about it.
Let us know when your party is ready to accept the blame.
Clinton's sexual adventures did not bring ruin to this country like the bush policies.
"The Republican Party needs to take responsibility for what has happened to this country during the Bush years."
In the REAL WORLD, Congress passes the laws, raises taxes, and spends the tax dollars. The democrats have run Congress for years now.
The president can only submit bills to Congress. They have to pass them.
The ills of the last eight years lay at the feet of liberal democrats, not the president.
Wow... well there is no comparison about lying about sex and weapons of mass destruction which led the nation to war and took the lives of many good young American Soldiers. And, as for Congress... years of democratic control? Come on! Only since January 2007. Bush had a blank check with his Republican Congress since his election. It always amazes me how people want to twist things to accomodate their opinions. I may not like the actions our President has taken, and I don't, but I don't forgive Congress regardless of which party controlled it either. They all are a bunch of crooks. The Republican Congressman exposed in Hawaii for attending this trade show last night demonstrates what is wrong with the political system. A clear and consistent ideology of "what is in it for me?" from either party is the problem.
I'll second Concerned Taxpayer's sentiment. Just a few days ago, the Democrat-controlled congress authorized another big chunk of money for the war in Iraq. If they had any intestinal fortitude, and walked the talk, they'd just vote no.
George Tenet's was labeled completely inaccurate because he got one detail wrong about a meeting with Richard Perle. That was overkill, but it was a substantive critique by conservatives.
But on McClellan's book, people can only say, "He's biting the hand that fed him. What an ingrate." They know he's on the money with respect to substance, so all they can do now is kill the the messenger. No pun intended.
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