If you've been following this story, Terry Gross from Fresh Air has Scott McClelland as her guest today. You can listen online later today at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91061991

He's quite direct - For Cheney and Rumsfeld and others, 9.11 'provided the excuse for the war in Iraq.' Libby and Rove lied directly to him about Valerie Plame. It was an intentional press office tactic to 'pushback' - to deflect questions and attack the patriotism of reporters who tried to give the war decisions the sort of scrutiny he now says should have occurred. Bush was kept insulated from contrary opinions by people who drive the GOP policies, and he's happy to be so kept. Bush "doesn't want to 'waste his time' with anyone who's going to be critical. That's his mindset." "This President is not one to reflect so much, or acknowledge mistakes."

None of the facts are in the least bit surprising, but the source is so fucking impeccable!

So McClelland states what the rest of us knew all along...now what?

If this meant some Congressional investigations and trials, it might really be news...but chances are likely that it will be swept under the carpet with all the other dirty deeds that this administration has perpetrated against the US citizenry. Didn't Bush already issue a "pre-pardon" for himself and his cronies anyway? ---seems like I've read something to that effect...

I do like that a "respectable" source has finally come out about this...but, information like this should break people out into a frenzy, grabbing nooses and pitchforks and looking for a few heads on pikes, but apathy rules supreme...

The one thing that suprises me is that he still claims Bush had a vision to bring Democracy to the mideast. I cant imagine Bush having a vision for anything other then mass capital gains for his friends. When Bush ran for the 2000 Presidency he claimed he was against nation building which stands in stark contrast with such a stated vision. I think McClelland is still being kind and that the goal was oil and control. When Cheney was making America's energy policies with the oil execs in secret and now those peeps got mega mega mega rich while the country goes to hell I think the agenda was obvious and Democracy is a joke to these people.

And still people are going to vote republican. What an insane, stupid, and short sighted species we are.

Yikes. Politics in toyland. My second favorite topic.

Besides all of the other scandals. I find it amazing that we live in a country where the president outed (or approved the outing) of a CIA agent.

Video that shows how incompetent McCain actually is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c

Yeah- you said it with one word- Apathy,

Its amazing, you would think these villains would be dragged out of office and straight into jail over this type of stuff.

I ask you- what would it take? how much more could these creeps get away with, inevitabley when it comes out that 9/11 was an inside job I hope that people wake up then.

The people and plans Scott is talking about is PNAC.

First of all let me say this story isnt as huge over our side of the atlantic as I gather it is with you guys, but what do you make of the critism he is recieving that he is just a 'Rat jumping ship' and cashing in?

Its a fair point that if he had such a moral problem with it- why not make the point at the time and not let the situations continue on their downward spiral?

The story isnt huge here either and will fade fast.

Every pre-Bush admin person that gets caught vanishes from the media quickly. War and theft seem to be little importance compared to the famous bj. But then again the White House got caught with the undercover SnM gay army guy posing as a journalist and that disapeared rather quickly. I still think that was Rove's boy.

Seems to me both George Tenet and Colin Powell have come out saying they were coerced into fabrications and misleadings to the US and that all just faded away.

Now lets get back to the REAL NEWS...whats Britteny up to?

The Irony of it is amazing- he says how the administration controls and manipulates the media, then what happens?

It makes me ponder the question- which came first the chicken or the egg?

Which came first a media dummbing down the public or the dummbed down public dummbing down the media?

It's interesting that Scott made this precise same point himself from the WH podium when (National Security Adviser to 3 Presidents) Clarke's book came out. McClelland said (among a lot else) that: a) He did not know he was being deceived about Plame at the time; b) the war propaganda effort he sees only in retrospect, at the time he still assumed that the intelligence was reliable, they would find the WMDs any day, etc. Remember that the press secretary is not in a position to independently assess the intelligence (unlike all the other myriad US professionals who were, and who directly told Rummy, Darth Cheney, and the rest of the White House/PNAC nutjobs that the data was crap and that their informant on all of the rotten Saddam info was not named 'Curveball' because of his reputation for honesty!) And, McClelland is reasonably self-critical about his failure to do more and sooner. One criticism that I do not think makes sense is the 'disgruntled money-grubbing' bit - McClelland could certainly have lined his pockets with much thicker wads of cash than this book will ever bring him, simply by keeping his mouth shut, toeing the GOP line and lobbying for some K Street outfit.



The press makes the facially valid point that they simply "give the public what they want." And it is true that sex and violence and Brittany always gets better ratings than Meet The Press. But, the job of the press is not to give us what we want, we have the other 99% of mediaspace for that - As always, the press' job is to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. But, the Bush White House has literally been the most secretive ever in the history of the US - And of course now they say they've lost the pre-war emails and can't even provide them to the National Archives for release 100 years from now.

I actually think the McClelland story has had more 'legs' than I might have expected, but no, it did not cause riots in the streets and calls for the violent overthrow of the government - A fact that would cause Thomas Jefferson no end of sadness. A lot of the problem is that the facts about the lies from the White House have all dribbled out bit by bit, and since we know we are not headed toward Bush impeachment hearings virtually no matter what surfaces, it all seems to have acquired an air of dumb, grim, stubborn inevitability -- Most people seem to be just hanging on until the day the current Bozo is back cutting brush in Crawford - which was always his 'highest and best use.'

The part in italics is to indicate sarcasm, right? If he was so "impeccable" (or "respectable" as scottygee put it), why didn't he come out with this stuff five years ago? Why didn't he walk out the door the day that this stuff happened? Maybe something could have actually been done about it in time before countless lives were lost and billions of dollars went down the drain for nothing.

Fuck him. He just realized he's chronically unemployable (like Alberto Gonzales is finding out) and realized that writing a book is a quick way to establish a retirement fund.

Agreed. More horse shit from a former mouthpiece. Listening to this guy is just a continuation of fodder for the masses.

And, for the record, the guys last name is McClellan, not McClelland.

I agree. If he really had a pair, he would have come out when this stuff was going down. What good does it do now? At least he made a few bucks.

if anything this could just be more Damage limitation.

As mentioned because impeachment is 'off the table' the fact that these atrocities are trickling out at a steady controlled rate as opposed to a tidal force serves only to sofwn the blow and allows the criminals to get away with it again.

If this had all come out at once there is no way they wouldn't be behind bars.

So is the PNAC a bit more than a conspiracy theory?
I wiki'd it, but it's too long to read at work, can someone nutshell it?

Nope - No sarcasm. Look, I'm not nominating the guy for sainthood. But, it is news when these revelations of manipulating the truth are not simply accusations from Pelosi or Rangel, but actual facts from someone who's been in the BushCo inner circle for decades.

Yes I wish he would have seen it and/or come clean sooner. (No, I do not think it would have made any difference if he had. Bush was going to war from Day 1, and nothing was gonna stop him.) No, I do not for one moment buy that he makes more $ with this book than he would have by keeping his mouth shut and playing the GOP game.

But, it's utterly absurd to think that this was in any way staged or promoted by BushCo. They did not expect him to spill these beans, and would like nothing better than for this story to fade quickly away. It's so much easier to manipulate fear without some guy on the sidelines pointing out your every trick.