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Jonah Goldberg: there's less to the McClellan book than they'd like you to believe
Emphasis added.Longstanding Bush critics like McClellans use of the P word because they think it proves they were right all along: that Bush lied and people died, as that shopworn refrain goes. The problem is thats not quite what McClellan seems to be saying. I still like and admire George W. Bush, McClellan writes in his memoirs. I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people. But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. McClellans only legitimate beef seems to be his unjust treatment during the Valerie Plame investigation. But that complaint doesnt sell books or get the sluices of journalistic saliva raging. Use of the word propaganda and charges of dishonesty about the war do, which is why he uses them. But McClellan concedes in interviews that even when he was an important cog in the propaganda machine, he never witnessed anything that seemed at the time to be deceitful or untrue. Rather, he says that his views have evolved. This is one debate over evolution where intelligent design seems to have the upper hand. The prime mover of McClellans evolving views was almost surely his need to move books. This all bespeaks a level of sophistication few ever credited McClellan with when he stood at the podium looking like a McDonalds cashier flummoxed by an order. Hes hawking books by making people think hes charging the Bush administration with wholesale dishonesty when hes not even making that case at the retail level. Hes claiming the role of insider with behind-the-scenes insights, but he admits it never occurred to him that there was any dishonesty at work until he left the White House and began ruminating on what he could put in his book. If only hed been this good at working the press when it was for someones benefit other than his own. Posted by: Mike 2008-05-30 |
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