Nerve Endings Firing Away

“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.“

…seemed to be the inspiration for Scott McClellan as is evident from its preface for writing his latest book eviscerating the Bush White House. Ranging from labeling the Iraq war as a ‘major blunder’ to the ‘constant campaign state’ as opposed to governing, McClellan calls out the White House on almost every issue voiced by its critics. Republican critics are already dismissing him as a turncoat, a sellout and a disgruntled former employee. The White House called the book puzzling and sad. Puzzling, as Chris Matthews noted yesterday seemed to be a common reaction among present and past members of the Bush White House staff.

But if you sift through the reactions, you will not notice any rejection of McClellan’s book as being untrue. Betrayal allegations aside, no one is calling McClellan a liar and that in itself should tell a lot. Admittedly much of what the book says is a matter of opinion but what makes it particularly significant is that this is the first time a Bush loyalist has broken ranks and spoken outside the circle of trust confirming all the fears and allegations of Bush critics. McClellan was no ordinary loyalist and his affiliation for Bush traced back to his Texas days. McClellan has a deep-rooted Texan connection with his grandfather serving as the dean of UT’s School of Law and mother elected as the first woman mayor of Austin and later as State Comptroller. Even McClellan’s brother served in Bush’s council of economic advisers and was commissioner of FDA [source]. So the loyalty angle has several layers and is rich in history given their connections in Texas politics.

As is well known, Bush’s penchant for putting loyalty above competence for appointing people had to fail like it did during Hurricane Katrina’s ‘heck of a job, Brownie’. The problem with choosing people based on loyalty rather than competency is that people can be disloyal if they are scorned or ignored. Pundits may debate long on McClellan’s motivations for writing this book and even if you think his personal justification of “about the slice of history I witnessed during my years in the White House and about the well-intentioned but flawed human beings — myself included — who shaped that history” is crap, you cannot call the contents untrue unless you are willing to say so. Even Michael Turk, the eCampaign Manage for Bush in 2004 says, McClellan is getting savaged for saying what everyone knows to be true anyway.

White House insiders like Rove and current press secretary Dana Perino label McClellan as a disgruntled employee and constantly harp on how this is not the Scott they knew. Further, their primary complaint is that if McClellan had the moral qualms that led him to write this book then why didn’t he speak about it when he was still in the White House. All I can say is that disagreeing with your bosses or expressing your contrary opinion especially when you know doing so will end up in unemployment doesn’t really inspire many employees. No wonder whistle-blowing is so rare and considered extremely dangerous if it backfires. No matter what they think of McClellan today, all I would like to hear is whether what he says in the book is true or not rest all is bunkum. Given how the top officials are reluctant to testify under oath, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. How much longer until more ‘loyal’ aides feel the pinch of their conscience and publish tell-all books? Perhaps after this White House term expires, we shall see plenty of such books but it is only the first one that matters.

America definitely deserved a better White House and given how close that election was, it could have been so different. We feared the worst and expected the best from this administration but unfortunately our fears were not unfounded. Sigh!