FLASHBACK: As Press Secretary, McClellan Called Bush A ‘Straight Shooter’ On Iraq
FLASHBACK: As Press Secretary, McClellan Called Bush A ‘Straight Shooter’ On Iraq
In a memoir scheduled to be published next week, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan charges that President Bush was not “open and forthright on Iraq” and that the Bush administration engaged in a “propaganda campaign” to sell the Iraq war.
McClellan’s surprising revelations mark a drastic shift from his past rhetoric regarding the war. During his time as press secretary, McClellan repeatedly defended the conduct of the war, justified the case that was made to launch it and defended Bush’s handling of the war, once even referring to him as a “straight shooter” on Iraq:
– “There was a lot of debate going on about the pre-war intelligence that was used in the lead up to the decision to go into Iraq and remove a brutal tyrant from his position of power. There were irresponsible and unfounded accusations being made against the administration, suggesting that we had manipulated or misused that intelligence. That was flat-out false.” [4/07/06]
– “I’ve known this President a long time, and this President is someone I think the American people recognize as a straight shooter, someone who, when he says something, means it, and does exactly what he says he’s going to do…when it comes to Iraq, in terms of the intelligence the President is someone that laid all that information out before the American people.” [7/01/04]
– “[W]e’ve been very straightforward about where we are in terms of the theater in Iraq.” [8/20/03]
– QUESTION: [D]oes [Bush] feel he misled the American people? McCLELLAN: No. [7/16/03]
It’s a shame it took McClellan so long to acknowledge that his boss and his colleagues were misleading the country into what he called in his memoir “a serious strategic blunder.”
When asked to explain McClellan’s shift, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to carry.”
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During his time as press secretary, McClellan repeatedly defended the conduct of the war, justified the case that was made to launch it and defended Bush’s handling of the war, once even referring to him as a “straight shooter” on Iraq
Lying scumbag ; Scotty should be faced with the punishment meted out upon him by those whose family members have unnecessarily perished in Chimpy’s Idiotic Iraq Adventure…………
May 28th, 2008 at 7:19 pmSo what if Puffy McMoonface called Bush a “straight shooter” on iraq then and now is saying Bush was not “open and forthright”.
We knew he was lying then.
The only reason we don’t suspect him of lying now is because what he’s saying now more closely aligns with the known universe of the “Reality-Based Community™”
May 28th, 2008 at 7:20 pmHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to carry.”
It almost sounds as if No Table Nancy is trying to make a comfy excuse for Scotty.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:21 pmthe tragi-comedy that is the administration of george w. bush stumbles on.
sad and hilarious, how will it end?
with a bang or a whimper?
*
May 28th, 2008 at 7:23 pmI think Mrs. Pelosi is taking her job title too literally. Being the mouthpiece of the House isn’t enough; executing to the fullest extent her constitutional duties would give her a satisfactory approval rating. No tables, but hey, a gavel and a blog.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:25 pmIf nothing else, I think we all owe Snotty McClellan a debt of gratitude for giving us a day without wall-to-wall McSame threads.
Thank you, Snotty!
May 28th, 2008 at 7:29 pmLying scumbag ; Scotty should be faced with the punishment meted out upon him by those whose family members have unnecessarily perished in Chimpy’s Idiotic Iraq Adventure…………
yeah, and writing a stupid tell all should not make him less guilty. He’s the worse kinda of p@#sy. He wants to point woe-is-me fingers, take the money and run. He’s like that bastard in Jurassic park that stole the T-Rex eggs and tried to lock everyone one up in the park and run away but then those weird dinosaur spit that ink in his eye and ate him. hehehe
May 28th, 2008 at 7:29 pmMcWars Says:
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to carry.”
It almost sounds as if No Table Nancy is trying to make a comfy excuse for Scotty.
Evidently the lies became even heavier than the water Scotty carried for Shrub all those years.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pmoops, McMetal’s quote, not mine
May 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pmninique Says:
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Lying scumbag ; Scotty should be faced with the punishment meted out upon him by those whose family members have unnecessarily perished in Chimpy’s Idiotic Iraq Adventure…………
yeah, and writing a stupid tell all should not make him less guilty. He’s the worse kinda of p@#sy. He wants to point woe-is-me fingers, take the money and run. He’s like that bastard in Jurassic park that stole the T-Rex eggs and tried to lock everyone one up in the park and run away but then those weird dinosaur spit that ink in his eye and ate him. hehehe
May 28th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
That’s the guy who plays “Newman” on Seinfeld………..
May 28th, 2008 at 7:33 pmoh yeah! thanx :}
May 28th, 2008 at 7:34 pmIsn’t there a law prohibiting criminals from profiting from their crimes through book sales?
May 28th, 2008 at 7:37 pmScottie never had nor will ever have the honesty or integrity of Bill Moyers. Is he lying now or was he lying then and ultimately, what difference does it make with Congressional leaders [?] like Hoyer and Pelosi.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:41 pmI’ve known this President a long time, and this President is someone I think the American people recognize as a straight shooter
No-no Scotty, that would be his uncle dick.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:48 pmThe chickens are coming home to roost.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:50 pmWell excuse the hell out of all of us as you took impeachment off the table knowing full well before 9/11 we were being wire taped Madam what’s her face..Seem’s to me an enabeler and violater of her own oath of office should do some explaining since you have be in the know of all the dirty little secret’s..Time to stop all this madness and clean out our house and senate, starting at the top…
Scotty should have to sign over all the proceed’s from his little book to the survivor’s of our military here and in Iraq..Think that was RUCerious’s idea…Blessings
May 28th, 2008 at 7:55 pmHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to NOT MAKE A PROFIT OFF OF”.
Bush approval in the tank, so Scotty sees dollar signs in it.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:55 pmSorry should be been instead of be..Blessings
May 28th, 2008 at 7:56 pmI don’t get why people are fawning over this liar. A liar has no credibility.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:09 pmI’m not buying it. Scotty is doing some serious CYA, and is still carrying water for BushCo.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:12 pmI agree Lady Z…..They are all lier’s and thieve’s and that’s the small crime’s..Blessings
May 28th, 2008 at 8:17 pmScotty got big bucks to lie for the White House and he did his job well. He was part of the criminal team to make sure the propaganda worked. Now it’s telling the truth for a price. The rats are turning on the rats. Look forward to Powell’s book as he sells a little of the truth about his part. Now Powell was in on the plan to allow our troops to go to Iraq to die for oil. I loved it when Powell acted dumb as if he didn’t know anything. I kept the tape of his lies to the United Nations on the WMD story, he openly and knowingly lied not only to the UN but to the American people. He didn’t protect the soldiers at all, but he’s sucking up to Obama for a job.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:20 pmIt’s a shame it took McClellan so long to acknowledge that his boss and his colleagues were misleading the country…
No, TP it isn’t a shame. His “acknowledgment” has been done for other reasons than you assume. By saying “shame” you imply that McClellan really has come over to the side of reality. Do you believe he is now a “convert”? If so, where is your proof of that belief.
And then you add: “took McClellan so long,” as if he has been weighted down with the guilt of his actions all these years. At the very best, the best, mind you, his acknowledgment is like a death bed conversion. Don’t let these neocons, of whom McClellan still remains, fool you. Wake up and smell the coffee. Its morning (mourning) in America!
May 28th, 2008 at 8:28 pm**So, Nancy, how about your lies and complicity in all of this? Are your lies too heavy to carry? Oh, I forgot, you are running for re-election, right? There are no lies too heavy to fess up to because power and greed call. Must be nice to collect taxpayer money for your salary and do nothing to EARN it.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:45 pmWhen asked to explain McClellan’s shift, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to carry.”
Guess that table on your back isn’t too heavy yet, hmmm?
May 28th, 2008 at 8:54 pmMan, Scotty’s words are certainly going to come back to bite him.
“When asked to explain McClellan’s shift, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, ‘at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to carry.’”
Gee, Nancy, ya think????
May 28th, 2008 at 8:58 pmPerhaps McClellan’s biggest revelation in his book is Bush’s statement that “only a wartime president can achieve greatness.” At the very least, what this quote should do is for the media and Congress to once again focus their attention on The Downing Street Minutes, which revealed that the US and the UK were determined to go to war in the summer of 2002, despite Bush’s claim that the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 was contingent upon the U.S. and the UN weapons inspectors locating those fearsome WMD, which Secretary of State Colin Powell assured the world that Iraq had copious amounts of in their possession.
Despite the announcement of The Downing Street Minutes and its damning evidence two years ago, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and the rest of the spineless Democrats continue to insist that impeachment must remain off the table. One wonders how philosophers and pundits can claim with a straight face that democracy, or at least that version practiced in the United States, is the best form of government that is available to the masses of the people.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:01 pmThe Freerepublic Cromagnons think Scotty was either Left Wing Stealth or George Soros paid him off.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:01 pmHow much responsibility can you really give a press sec.? Do they make or shape policy? Press Secs come and go like contractions. They are just like some employee who does what the boss tells him.
Am I being too much of a softy?
All day people have been baggin’ on Micky, and refusing to give him a pass.
I give him a pass.
F*(k it. I’m generatin’ some goodwill.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:06 pmJake Tapper has some good quotes from when Scotty was ridiculing books from Paul O’Neill and Richard Clarke:
McCLELLAN: “It appears to be more about trying to justify personal views and opinions than it does about looking at the results that we are achieving on behalf of the American people.”
and
McCLELLAN: Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let’s look at the politics of it. His best buddy is Rand Beers, who is the principal foreign policy advisor to Senator Kerry’s campaign. The Kerry campaign went out and immediately put these comments up on their website that Mr. Clarke made. …
Q: Scott, the whole point of his book is he says that he did raise these concerns and he was not listened to by his superiors.
McCLELLAN: Yes, and that’s just flat-out wrong. …When someone uses such charged rhetoric that is just not matched by the facts, it’s important that we set the record straight. And that’s what we’re doing. If you look back at his past comments and his past actions, they contradict his current rhetoric. I talked to you all a little bit about that earlier today. Go back and look at exactly what he has said in the past and compare that with what he is saying today.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:22 pmOTOH he is of course right - we shouldn’t let our denunciations of McClellan’s lying past obscure the importance of the truths he is now telling.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:23 pmPoor widdle Scotty…he’s in a cleft stick of his own making.
Guess he opted out of Wingnut Welfare.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:24 pmAre you going to GIVE BACK all the money YOU took from TAXPAYERS for telling us thoes lies Scotty? You had the choice to say NO to bushco then…but you did not. Make a note of this St. Peter. Nancy, you said impeachment is off the table..you better keep your mouth shut about anything as you showed your are bought and paid for by bushco.
May 28th, 2008 at 10:10 pm.
Scott McClellan = LIAR!
.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:01 amSo, Scott only started to have misgivings after he quit and could look back and reflect on his time in the White House?
Oh, c’mon. He knew he was lying back then.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:05 amUntil someone steps in and can back up his claims, they don’t hold much weight. But dismissing these claims totally is short sited considering the people we are talking about. It doesn’t take much of a stretch to go from blocking 9/11 investigations, torture, and wire tapping, to fabrication and lies to push your agenda. I don’t think anything could come out about BushCo that would surprise me at this point.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:42 amScott McClellan Does A Hans Fritzsche
Hans Fritzsche, Chief of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry’s Radio Division.
Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1946
“Between these criminals and myself there is only one connection: they merely
misused me in a different way than they misused those who became their physical
victims.”
“In really serious questions of policy and the conduct of war I did not commit a single falsification and did not consciously tell a single lie.”
“But decisive for such a news machine is not the detail but the final fundamental basis on which propaganda is built. Decisive is the belief in the incorruptibility of the leaders of the State, on which every journalist must rely, and this basis is shaken by what has become known today of mass murders, of senseless atrocities and by the doubt in the honesty of Hitler’s protestations for peace.”
“I am convinced that Hitler and at least some of his colleagues had deliberately lied to the people, in some important instances, right from the beginning of their political career, and, something that is not so important to history, I personally consider that, on these points, I have been deceived.”
“The main guilt of people such as Fritzsche is that they did know the actual state of affairs, but despite this, proceeding according to the criminal intentions of the Hitler Government, intentionally fed the people with lies or, to use an everyday expression, ‘threw dust in their eyes.’” ~ Ferdinand Schoerner
May 29th, 2008 at 3:54 amLets be honest about it all. Bullshitting comes with the job.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:47 am