What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception

Author - Scott McClellan ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from PublicAffairs was reviewed on 18-Oct-2008.

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1) Hardcover Book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by PublicAffairs. This book should have been titled "What Happened?" A question mark in the title would have been much more apropos. Scott McClellan, in his haste to publish a book, seems to have spent little or no time contemplating what did happen during his time in the White House.

Like his idol, George W. Bush, McClellan is a product of the "unexamined life" that Socrates warned about centuries ago. After reading the book, which is not recommended here, one can easily draw the conclusion that no amount of time would have been sufficient for McClellan to understand the extent of the failure and the damage caused by the administration for which he was press secretary from mid-2003 until his firing in 2006.

Every author needs a theme and I guess his publisher gave him the idea of reading a book called the "Permanent Campaign." He uses that book and the book "Shadow: The Legacy of Watergate" by Bob Woodward (though he does not indicate that he read it) to come up with his facile thesis. The conduct of the presidency was too politicized by the Bush administration as part of a permanent campaign. It is also harder to get away with a lie since Watergate. Incompetence is never posited as a possibility.

To McClellan, President Bush was not unqualified for the presidency. He merely let it veer off under the evil influence of Karl Rove and the installation of a permanent campaign in the White House. He accuses the Clinton administration of inventing the approach. He presents Karl Rove as the evil architect who took it to a new level. Bush´s only weakness according to McClellan is a penchant for self-deception. His later revelations show that Bush also has quite a penchant for the deception of others.

The most disturbing part of McClellan´s book is the more correct, though unconscious, theme that he repeats throughout the book. Politics to McClellan and others in the Bush administration is about selling political policies rather than persuading the public and Congress of their merits. There is one conscious admission that McClellan makes that rings true. Bush, Cheney and many others in the administration believe that the ends justify the means.

McClellan still does not seem to understand that such a view of life almost inevitably leads to lying and misrepresentation. How could he understand? Permanent campaign? The Legacy of Watergate? Hooey. The only redeeming value for McClellan in this book is that one does get a sense that he was naïve enough to believe anything he was told without question; not so redeeming, that he still is naive today because he did not learn a thing from his experience.

McClellan claims that he was stunned and shocked that Rove and Scooter Libby lied to him about their involvement of the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame. By that point in the book a reader is justified in exclaiming "Why?" He also seems more put out that their lies ruined his image with the press and the public rather than that the Plame leak was unethical and potentially life-threatening for a covert CIA operative.

It is clear from this book that President Bush declassified a selected portion of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in October 2002 (before McClellan became press secretary) so that Vice President Cheney, Rove and Libby could leak about Plame without being subject to prosecution for revealing classified secrets. Yet it does not seem to dawn on McClellan that Bush was a co-conspirator in the Plame leak through the declassification of the NIE. Bush lied to McClellan and saved the truth for special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. That is not self-deceit, Scott. That is just plain deceit. And McClellan thinks this was the result of a "permanent campaign?"

McClellan also seems more interested in paying back Rove and Libby for making him look like a fool than he does about the number of American soldiers who have died for the sake of a poorly "sold" war. All one can say is that Rove, Libby, and Bush knew a fool when they saw one. That he still claims to admire George W. Bush even today is Exhibit No. 1 that he has no idea of what really happened in the Plame affair or the nature of the real George Bush that everyone else does.

If McClellan really wants to know what happened, and the frightful consequences of "selling" an unnecessary war, I have a book he should read; not for profit but for self-examination. "The Last True Story I´ll Ever Tell" by John Crawford is a harrowing autobiographical account of an Army National Guardsman yanked off his honeymoon and sent to Iraq for over two years. There he experienced the Kafkaesque experience of serving on the ground in Iraq at the height of the insurgency. Catch-22-like Crawford continued to have his tours extended indefinitely.

The juxtaposition of McClellan´s self-pity about his treatment while basking in the luxuries of political office and his new marriage, and Crawford´s straight-forward account of his experience in Iraq that cost him his new marriage is almost enough to make one want to bring back the draft. And to make sure that guys like McClellan serve. His dedication of the book "To those who serve" is galling, self-serving and unseemly in the greatest sense.

His prescriptions for changing "the culture of deception" at the end of the book are as banal as all of the other lessons he supposedly learned in the White House. McClellan is a professional follower, not a political philosopher. So much for getting out of the White House "bubble" in order to get a proper perspective on "what happened" as McClellan claims he did.

McClellan has no idea what happened. He lacks the intellectual capacity, the introspective nature, and the inner moral compass necessary to ever know or understand what happened. Take a pass on this one.
¤

2) Hardcover Book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by PublicAffairs. I think Scott does a brilliant job of adequately covering his time in the Bush White house, and creating a good timeline of events to illustrate his opinion of life "inside the bubble." From the constant campaign to the collection of agreement, McClellan seeks to clarify the secretive world that existed while he was press secretary. I think the author goes to great lengths to specifically NOT bash or degrade anyone in this book. I found it an honest view that if anything, restated its point perhaps a bit too much. Overall, it was refreshing to have an honest look at the culture inside, something we as the public had wanted since day one. Well worth the read and quite interesting. You may not agree with Scott´s opinions, but they are genuine and not malicious.¤

3) Hardcover Book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by PublicAffairs. In my personal opinion, VP Dick Cheney gave the orders and decieved everyone for his own political gain. President Bush was just a prop giving Cheney all the power.¤

4) Hardcover Book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by PublicAffairs. I just finished Scott´s book today and am shocked that Rove and others I have seen on the news have said that he turned on them. Instead of the expected bash on Bush, Scott was fair, polite, even respectful of Bush and the entire White House staff. What Scott did bash was the culture of deception, politics-as-war, permanent campaign, and care-more-about-party-than-America culture in Washington, D.C. This is a story of a guy who loves America and loves the political process, who went to Washington with a President who sincerely wanted to end the corruption there, but ended up getting caught up in it and perpetuating this secretive and partisan culture that sickens so many of us younger Americans. This book is very interesting, rational and fair. It is a call to all Americans to demand more of their leadership whatever the party, and more of their media whatever the network.¤

5) Hardcover Book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by PublicAffairs. "What Happened" is full of great insider information put forth by an intensely reasonable story teller who seems to have no other agenda than the truth. I am no fan of the Bush administration. But I´ve had my fill of books that conclude that George Bush is either evil or stupid or both. It was refreshing to read an account that put blame on a bad mix of character flaws and events. Mr. McClellan has the perspective of an historian. I enjoyed being drawn into this inner circle and given a broader perspective on the most important events of our time.¤

6) Hardcover Book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by PublicAffairs.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 15-Nov-2008, 15864855639781586485566, 250-220-930-5X0-6X1-771-631-1X1-8OB-8

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