So, former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan has written a book sharply critical of Bush.
Scott McClellan, one of the Texans who came to Washington with President George W. Bush, spent a long time defending the administration but now has concluded this his longtime employer misled the nation into an unneeded war in Iraq.
"History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided -- that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder," Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, writes in his book, What Happened, which will be released on Monday. Subtitle: Washington's Culture of Deception.
"No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact,'' he writes in the preface of the book. "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.''
This from a son of Austin who served Bush as governor of Texas, campaigned with him through two elections and served as press secretary into the second term.
Ken Herman, another Texan who came to Washington with this crew as a correspondent for the Austin newspaper, notes that McClellan becomes "the first longtime Bush aide to put such harsh criticism between hard covers,'' with Herman calling the tome " an extraordinarily critical book that questions Bush's intellectual curiosity, his candor in leading the nation to war, his pattern of self-deception and the quality of his advisers.
OK, I'm sure Scott McClellan is very sorry for all the bullshit he helped foist on the American people. Whatever. But this bit struck me:
McClellan traces Bush's own penchant for self-deception back to an overheard incident on the campaign trail in 1999 when the then-governor was dogged by reports of possible cocaine use in his younger days. The book recounts an evening in a hotel suite "somewhere in the Midwest." Bush was on the phone with a supporter and motioned for McClellan to have a seat.
"'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say,'' McClellan writes, recounting these words: 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'"
"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?" McClellan writes. "How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense."
Do you suppose it's possible to not be able to remember cocaine use? Maybe if he was really drunk? Maybe he lost memories of coke use after doing all that smack, crank and crack....