Ex-spokesman McClellan 'disgruntled,' White House says

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush's presidency "terribly off course.'

The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed"

And

McClellan called the Iraq war a "serious strategic blunder," a surprisingly harsh assessment from the man who was at that time the loyal public voice of the White House who had followed Bush to Washington from Texas.

"The Iraq war was not necessary," he concludes. "Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake."

And

But, McClellan said, Bush's unwillingness to admit mistakes and belief in his own spin contributed to turning the president into "not quite the leader I once imagined him to be." He faults Bush for a "lack of inquisitiveness" and "a degree of self-deception that may be psychologically necessary to justify the tactics needed to win the political game."

Bush "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment," McClellan writes.

And

Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," she said. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad — this is not the Scott we knew."

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Ha! I love this shit!

A guy I work with was telling me earlier tonight that he thinks he would have been better off being born in 1945 or so, coming of age in the 60s; I told him I used to think that, myself, years ago, but I eventually came to the conclusion that if I'd been in my prime back then all my hopes and dreams would have been dashed by the Reagan era and beyond, especially by the current Bush administration: right now is the best time to be alive because anything can happen--it's our future to write, and new wonders await our gaze.

This is a new wonder. McClellan is a major Bush insider; his turning coat, his telling the truth, at last, is glorious. I mean, none of this information is new. Everybody with half a brain at this point can read the writing on the wall: Bush is a liar, and worse, is willfully ignorant. But that a guy like Scotty McClellan, a bona fide drinker of the Kool-Aid, would come out and break ranks is extraordinarily significant. I mean, it was probably inevitable that someone was going to do this, at some point, but here it is happening right now--it's no longer an abstract idea; the truth is being told by people who saw it happening first hand. The door is open now for others to follow.

And the White House's dismissal of McClellan as "disgruntled" is nothing short of lame: of course he's disgruntled! He had to lie to the American public on TV, again and again and again. No smear campaign has a chance in hell of succeeding this time. Everyone believes him.

Keeping that in mind:

Hey Congress! You've got an eye witness here ready to say that the President "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment." Why the fuck weren't impeachment articles filed last night?!? We've got him now. Smoking gun. Slam dunk. Home run. Touchdown. You motherfuckers don't impeach him now, you're just as guilty.

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