Scott Stops Spinning
Scott McClellan announced his resignation today. I'm not surprised. He likely got so tired of spinning that it just wore him out. With Powell coming forward to debunk the administration's claims around Iraqi WMDs, a slew of retired generals calling for Rumsfeld to resign, and so much of the Republican party in disgrace, McClellan is smart enough to know he can't spin his way to favor with the American public any more, and that has to hurt.
Looking back, he has a lot to be proud of. He stepped into Air Fleischer's shoes and never looked back. He fulfilled his commitment to maintain the President's plausible deniability stance on every level. Every time someone accused Bush of lying or misleading the American public, McClellan was right there to spin us into an alternate truth, where everything Bush does is right and every seeming wrong is really due to accidental misinformation.
If we're to believe Scott McClellan, the CIA told Bush about the two trailers found in Iraq, they just didn't bother to fill him in on the fact that they were for providing hydrogen for weather balloons, not for making biological weapons. I seem to recall that the CIA told Bush about the aluminum tubes Rice cited in her call to war as well, but for some reason they failed to tell him they weren't suitable for nuclear weapons. The CIA even told Bush there was a deal between Niger and Iraq for yellow-cake uranium, they just left out the part about it not actually being true. According to McClellan, none of these intelligence failures are the President's fault; the man just didn't get the memos.
Yet if discovering the truth were Bush's goal, how do you account for the fact that when Joe Wilson had the guts to come right out and say, for example, that the uranium yellow-cake deal with Niger was not true--having been to Niger to investigate that claim--the Bush administration outed Wilson's wife and did their best to vilify him? The only thing this business clarified for me is why everybody's afraid to tell Bush the truth. Apparently, he doesn't want it.
As the now infamous PNAC report and Downing Street Memo make painfully clear, George W. Bush intended to invade Iraq, regardless of whether or not the intelligence supported that decision. McClellan did some pretty heavy spinning around that too--but he wasn't the only one.
Then CIA Director, George Tenet, did a bit of tap dancing as well. Whereas, in the past, the CIA Director might be tasked with providing detailed, accurate and complete information to the Commander in Chief, George Tenet's assignment was special. His goal was to withhold information the White House didn't want. It was, quite simply, the only way to create the plausible deniability Bush needed to wage an unnecessary war and get away with it. And there is no doubt that Mr. Tenet performed magnificently. In fact, he performed so well that he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sounds absurd, I know. But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense: George Tenet's failures were George Bush's success.
As were the failures of Condoleezza Rice. Had her goal been to prevent an attack like 9/11, Condoleezza Rice would not have refused to meet with Richard Clarke, the foremost expert on the subject of Al Qaeda and the threat they posed to the United States. Had her goal been foiling an attack, her first act as National Security Advisor should have been to gather as much information as possible from the experts at her disposal. Instead, she sidelined Clarke and refused to invite him to meetings. What's more, she ignored the list of action items he carefully passed on to her and had the gall to tell the 9/11 Commission that she did nothing with them because she considered it a "list" not a "plan" and "nobody told me what to do."
Yet, as with Tenet's failures, Condi's snafus gave the White House exactly what they needed. Bush knew he couldn't attack Iraq without the support of the American public, and he knew without a "Pearl Harbor" he wouldn't get that support. So, Condoleezza Rice looked the other way while Al Qaeda worked unchecked. She too was rewarded. As were Robert Bolton and Alberto Gonzales.
The pattern is clear: those who agreed to assist the president in achieving his goal of invading Iraq, at the expense of the truth and the welfare of the American people, have been well compensated. The few who were willing to speak the truth to protect the American people, have been smeared, discredited and/or ignored. Yet every day we hear another report about how the White House did their best, they just got it wrong. And each time the pattern repeats, Scott McClellan has been there to remind us that our president has always made the best possible decision based on the information he had. That is, until now.
Scott McClellan is stepping down. I am sure he's tired. But I suspect there's more to it than that. In fact, I have a hunch that he's more than tired. I'd be willing to bet he's just a little bit angry. Despite his continued insistence that the many mistakes made by the White House were not due to any conspiracy or decision to "cherry pick" information, he must have finally realized it just isn't possible for the colossal failures of the Bush administration to have all been due to nothing more sinister or complicated than a series of completely accidental mistakes.
Why? Because it's not statistically possible to achieve a 100% failure rate by accident. In order to perform that badly, you have to work at it.
Looking back, he has a lot to be proud of. He stepped into Air Fleischer's shoes and never looked back. He fulfilled his commitment to maintain the President's plausible deniability stance on every level. Every time someone accused Bush of lying or misleading the American public, McClellan was right there to spin us into an alternate truth, where everything Bush does is right and every seeming wrong is really due to accidental misinformation.
If we're to believe Scott McClellan, the CIA told Bush about the two trailers found in Iraq, they just didn't bother to fill him in on the fact that they were for providing hydrogen for weather balloons, not for making biological weapons. I seem to recall that the CIA told Bush about the aluminum tubes Rice cited in her call to war as well, but for some reason they failed to tell him they weren't suitable for nuclear weapons. The CIA even told Bush there was a deal between Niger and Iraq for yellow-cake uranium, they just left out the part about it not actually being true. According to McClellan, none of these intelligence failures are the President's fault; the man just didn't get the memos.
Yet if discovering the truth were Bush's goal, how do you account for the fact that when Joe Wilson had the guts to come right out and say, for example, that the uranium yellow-cake deal with Niger was not true--having been to Niger to investigate that claim--the Bush administration outed Wilson's wife and did their best to vilify him? The only thing this business clarified for me is why everybody's afraid to tell Bush the truth. Apparently, he doesn't want it.
As the now infamous PNAC report and Downing Street Memo make painfully clear, George W. Bush intended to invade Iraq, regardless of whether or not the intelligence supported that decision. McClellan did some pretty heavy spinning around that too--but he wasn't the only one.
Then CIA Director, George Tenet, did a bit of tap dancing as well. Whereas, in the past, the CIA Director might be tasked with providing detailed, accurate and complete information to the Commander in Chief, George Tenet's assignment was special. His goal was to withhold information the White House didn't want. It was, quite simply, the only way to create the plausible deniability Bush needed to wage an unnecessary war and get away with it. And there is no doubt that Mr. Tenet performed magnificently. In fact, he performed so well that he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sounds absurd, I know. But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense: George Tenet's failures were George Bush's success.
As were the failures of Condoleezza Rice. Had her goal been to prevent an attack like 9/11, Condoleezza Rice would not have refused to meet with Richard Clarke, the foremost expert on the subject of Al Qaeda and the threat they posed to the United States. Had her goal been foiling an attack, her first act as National Security Advisor should have been to gather as much information as possible from the experts at her disposal. Instead, she sidelined Clarke and refused to invite him to meetings. What's more, she ignored the list of action items he carefully passed on to her and had the gall to tell the 9/11 Commission that she did nothing with them because she considered it a "list" not a "plan" and "nobody told me what to do."
Yet, as with Tenet's failures, Condi's snafus gave the White House exactly what they needed. Bush knew he couldn't attack Iraq without the support of the American public, and he knew without a "Pearl Harbor" he wouldn't get that support. So, Condoleezza Rice looked the other way while Al Qaeda worked unchecked. She too was rewarded. As were Robert Bolton and Alberto Gonzales.
The pattern is clear: those who agreed to assist the president in achieving his goal of invading Iraq, at the expense of the truth and the welfare of the American people, have been well compensated. The few who were willing to speak the truth to protect the American people, have been smeared, discredited and/or ignored. Yet every day we hear another report about how the White House did their best, they just got it wrong. And each time the pattern repeats, Scott McClellan has been there to remind us that our president has always made the best possible decision based on the information he had. That is, until now.
Scott McClellan is stepping down. I am sure he's tired. But I suspect there's more to it than that. In fact, I have a hunch that he's more than tired. I'd be willing to bet he's just a little bit angry. Despite his continued insistence that the many mistakes made by the White House were not due to any conspiracy or decision to "cherry pick" information, he must have finally realized it just isn't possible for the colossal failures of the Bush administration to have all been due to nothing more sinister or complicated than a series of completely accidental mistakes.
Why? Because it's not statistically possible to achieve a 100% failure rate by accident. In order to perform that badly, you have to work at it.
posted by LA Fosner at 5:00 PM
1 Comments:
Laurie, I'm going to leave my remarks regarding your articles here.
When I heard Scot McClellan on NPR yesterday get a bit teary saying goodbye to his Commander in Chief, I immediately thought it was as if he had sacrificed a great deal to remain loyal.
Sacrificed perhaps his own integrity, unless you measure integrity as following orders even when you know they are immoral.
Sacrificed perhaps his own peace of mind, unless he believed all the lies so completely he could cloak his conscious from the light of truth.
We know he did not have to sacrifice his financial status.
Do you have any record of how much money he made to pose between the Amercan public and the man behind the curtain?
Keep up the fight Laur! KP
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