I really hope there\u2019s a special level of hell reserved for weasels like Scott McClellan.<\/p>\n
McClellan, as you may or may not know, is the former press secretary of President Bush who has written a scathing tell-all book that pushes all the right MoveOn.org buttons. You know the drill – Bush lied, kids died. They\u2019ve been chanting this mantra for over half a decade now, so it was only a matter of time before one of George’s own guys started saying it. As the historical consensus hardens around the proposition that Bush is a failure, McClellan the Rat jumps off a sinking ship and on to the one that he thinks is going to get him feted by the press, the intelligentsia, and the public at large.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s not going to get what he wants. Sure, he\u2019ll get plenty of attention. But he\u2019s lost just about everyone\u2019s respect. What, he thinks the Lefties will give him kudos for turning on Bush when there\u2019s no political downside to it? Does he think anyone on the Right will ever speak to him again? What an idiot. The Left may welcome the ammunition, but even they can smell rank opportunism and disloyalty.<\/p>\n
Yet like McClellan and the majority of Americans, I, too, am disgusted with President Bush. But my reasons differ wildly from the conventional wisdom. I\u2019m disgusted because he\u2019s given up, because he\u2019s thrown his defenders and his own party to the wolves. McClellan can spout the opposition party line and all Bush can do at this point is wring his hands. No one is telling the truth about Iraq \u2013 that it was the right thing to do, that it\u2019s saved thousands, if not millions of lives of people who would otherwise end up in Saddam\u2019s mass graves, that everyone in the world believed he had WMDs and the intent to use them, which is why he bluffed up until the end, because he doubted the will of America.<\/p>\n
Well, Bush stood up to him. And if Iraq is allowed to stabilize before Obama yanks the troops out of there, \u201cBush\u2019s war\u201d will ultimately be seen as the pivot point that transformed the Middle East into a place hospitable to Western democracy. That probably won\u2019t happen, though, as too many people have a vested interest in dismantling Bush\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
And Bush – tired, muddled, flummoxed, and confused \u2013 is all too willing to let them do it.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s let his political enemies define his presidency all down the line since Hurricane Katrina, when FEMA arrived faster than it ever had in previous disasters but took the brunt of criticism for the rank incompetence of state and local officials. And what did Bush do? He piled on FEMA and gave Mayor Nagin and Co. a pass, thereby solidifying the narrative that Katrina was his biggest non-Iraq blunder.<\/p>\n
When his Attorney General fired eight US Attorneys \u2013 which was well within his rights to do \u2013 Bush tried to defend him while he threw him under the bus. Gonzales was a good guy, the prez said, but you\u2019re right, critics, this was a bad, mean, awful thing he did.<\/p>\n
What crap.<\/p>\n
Bush should have stepped up, said \u201cYeah, I fired them. Why? Because I felt like it. Same reason Clinton fired all of them. They serve at the pleasure of the president , and I wasn\u2019t pleased. You got a problem with that?\u201d Instead, he tried to make nice and bought into the critic\u2019s argument that there was something untoward about the whole thing, and he damaged himself even further.<\/p>\n
McClellan\u2019s book plays directly to all the biases and misconceptions that Bush critics cultivate, even resurrecting silliness about the \u201couting\u201d of CIA agent Valerie Plame, who was exposed by Clinton holdover and Iraq War opponent Richard Armitage. The damning facts about Plame and Wilson \u2013 she was not covert, he was not sent to Niger by Cheney, and Libby and Rove were not the ones who revealed her identity \u2013 have been verifiably exposed time and again, yet Bush\u2019s inability to articulate a coherent defense has allowed a blatant falsehood to become “truth,\u201d a “truth” which McClellan has no problem cashing in on.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s nauseating. And it\u2019s made worse by the fact that Bush is either too scared or too stupid to change the record.<\/p>\n
And all the while, Bush has sold the Republican Party down the river on every other issue that matters. Federal spending and bloated government subsidies have gone through the roof. The Federal Government, via No Child Left Behind, has metastasized itself into every aspect of education. Bush is even giving crappy global warming speeches that will no doubt be cited by whoever gets elected next when they bankrupt the country with an asinine cap and trade bill. \u201cEven the hated ex-President Bush recognizes the need for this,\u201d Obama\/Clinton\/McCain will say.<\/p>\n
And to Bush\u2019s everlasting shame, they\u2019ll be right. But that doesn\u2019t mean Scott McClellan isn\u2019t a weasel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireally hope there\u2019s a special level of hell reserved for weasels like Scott McClellan. McClellan, as you may or may not know, is the former press secretary of President Bush who has written a scathing tell-all book that pushes all the right MoveOn.org buttons. You know the drill - Bush lied, kids died. They\u2019ve been ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4871,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/4871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}