Month: May 2008

Pelosi Brings a Hammer

The toughest woman in American politics isn’t Hillary Clinton, it’s Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker didn’t get her job by playing nice, and she’s as tough as nails. Yet, she wields her power in a distinctively feminine manner, which means that oftentimes you never see the hand that slaps you down. Does Clinton think she’s taking her campaign all the way to the convention? Think again.

“If you have no order and no discipline in terms of party rules, people will be having their primary in the year before the presidential election,” she said. “So there has to be some penalty.”

She said the party committee will come up with a formula that is “fair and accepted by both campaigns,” perhaps allowing the states 50 percent of their delegates. But “if the resolution is not appropriate, then it remains for the (Democratic National Convention) credentials committee to resolve it,” she said. Then, “it will have to happen by the end of June” or she will intervene, she said.

The Democrats hold their convention in late August in Denver.

Pelosi said she has not been in contact with the Clinton or Obama campaigns on the matter because “I think it is all going in the right direction” and will be resolved “in an orderly fashion” as early as next week.

That’s the equivalent of Pelosi saying ‘checkmate’ to the aspirations of the Clinton campaign. But you have to read between the lines. Remember, Pelosi is actually neutral:

Pelosi, the nation’s first female speaker of the House, said she is keenly aware of efforts, reported in The Chronicle this week, of the San Francisco political action committee, WomenCount, which is running full-page newspaper ads headlined “Not So Fast!” – warning against what it calls premature efforts to push Clinton from the race and crown Obama the party’s nominee.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a longtime Clinton friend and one of the effort’s organizers, said Wednesday the committee has raised $400,000 in the past 10 days from women across the country determined to make the case for Clinton all the way to the convention.

“God bless their enthusiasm,” said Pelosi of the effort. “These women are fabulous, and I know many of them very well.” But, she said, while “we all want to see a woman president … they want me to be the chair of the convention, who is neutral. And yet they want me to be for Hillary Clinton.”

How’s that for a velvet glove? Look how gently she dispatches every one of Clinton’s talking points! She never actually directly addresses any of Clinton’s arguments, yet she piles each one on the ashheap. And all the while she maintains her neutrality. Just like she’s neutral about the Bush administration:

“This president has caused great harm to America, and I say this with great sadness, because coming in as speaker, I’d hoped we could work together. … He has refused to listen to the American people, (has shown) a tin ear to the American people, a blind eye to what was happening in Iraq. … This president will go down in history as the worst, whether you’re talking about jeopardizing our national security… (or) the worst record of job creation.”

And the Republicans in the House:

“We just won three special (House) elections that the GOP never thought they would lose in a million years,” Pelosi said, referring to recent congressional races in Illinois, Mississippi and Louisiana.

“(Republicans) tried to make it about me and San Francisco values. They don’t have a message,” she said. “It’s going to be a very bad year for Republicans.”

And John McCain:

“He was in the right place on immigration, and he reneged; he was in the right place on the president’s tax cuts, and now he’s changed his mind. I’m hoping that he doesn’t change his mind on the global warming issue … but I can’t even think of a Republican president. It’s simply not going to happen.”

The Republicans had a small window when Pelosi became speaker when they could have made a mea culpa (like Scott McClellan) and removed Bush and Cheney from office. They decided to defend them instead and Pelosi acted accordingly. Now there will be payback. And the backlash is going to take out the centrist Democratic party establishment with it. Imagine how powerful Pelosi will be when she heads a caucus 280 members strong and has a president that has roots doing inner-city community organizing!

Change is coming and we’re going to have to chuck a lot of the categories we’ve used to sift political information. The Democrats will become (like they were before the Reagan Revolution) a party-and-a-half. It will be run by the party we are all familiar with, but it will have a large conservative wing. But that conservative wing won’t be racist and it won’t deny global warming, and it won’t be blindly in the pocket of corporations and unfettered free trade. It’s a realignment. And the younger generation will assure that it is a lasting realignment and that it becomes less socially conservative over time.

Clinton Loses Legal Battle

Apparently the DNC’s lawyers say that, contrary to the Clinton campaign’s fondest hopes, the best that can be done regarding Michigan and Florida is to seat only half of each state’s delegation, or the full delegation with half the votes, but in any event, not the whole kit and caboodle.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prospects of persuading Democratic officials to override party rules and recognize all delegates selected in the Florida and Michigan primaries suffered a setback yesterday after lawyers for the party ruled that no more than half of those delegations could be legally recognized.

Democratic National Committee lawyers wrote in a memo that the two states must forfeit at least half of their delegates as punishment for holding primaries earlier than DNC rules allowed. Clinton (N.Y.) prevailed in both contests, although the Democratic candidates had agreed not to campaign in Florida and Michigan, and Sen. Barack Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. […]

… [I]n the memo, party lawyers determined that full restoration, as sought by Clinton, would violate DNC rules, although it did note a loophole that would allow her to carry the challenge to the first day of the Democratic National Convention in late August.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters that the senator from Illinois is prepared to forfeit a portion of his delegate lead, as part of a compromise to resolve the Florida and Michigan flap. “We don’t think it’s fair to seat them fully,” Plouffe said of the two delegations. But he added, “We’re willing to give some delegates here” in order to put the matter to rest.

Essentially, this gives the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (and ultimately the convention delegates if she takes this to a floor fight in Denver) legal cover to decide that only half the delegates from Florida and Michigan can be seated when they meet on May 31st. As you might recall, Clinton aimed to make a big push at that meeting to have all the delegates from Michigan and Florida seated.

Clinton supporters are organizing a “Count Every Vote” rally outside the meeting site and have bombarded committee members with phone calls and Florida oranges to press their case.

Obama’s campaign sent a mass e-mail to supporters yesterday, urging them not to descend on the event. Plouffe said the campaign could easily muster “thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people” to counter Clinton’s turnout, but said he wants to avoid an “unhelpful scene at the close of the nomination fight.”

Of course, like all us litigious types, Clinton could still go to court and attempt to force the issue, but I don’t see that as a particularly good thing for her to do. It makes her look petty and contentious, reinforcing all the old Clinton stereotypes about being ruled strictly by their personal ambition rather than party loyalty. However, I fully expect her to file a lawsuit if the Rules Committee does decide to seat less than all the delegates. She’s given no indication that she cares about her party if she cannot be its standard bearer so far, and I don’t expect her to stop now just because the DNC lawyers or the Rules Committee disagree with the position which is most advantageous to her personally.

Speaking to reporters on a morning conference call, senior adviser Harold Ickes refused to rule out a legal challenge if the committee does not rule in Clinton’s favor. “That’s a bridge to cross when we come to that particular stream,” he said.

Parsing Ickes’ words, that tells me a lawsuit is inevitable at this point, perhaps even if the Rules Committee simply decides not to decide anything, and passes the buck to the convention. Big surprise, eh?

Fallujah Attack and Birth Defects?

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Did US Army Cause Iraq Birth Defects?

FALLUJAH, Iraq (SkyNews) May 29, 2008 – Families in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are calling for an investigation into their claims of a rise in the number of birth defects.

They have raised concerns about the weapons used by American forces in 2004 – when Fallujah suffered one of the heaviest bombardments of the entire war in Iraq.

But Hikmat Tawfeeq, deputy chairman of the Fallujah-based human rights group Alakhyar said: “We have around 200 cases of deformities recorded by our society.  Most of these cases are birth deformities which have arisen after the bombing of Fallujah.”

Campaigners say officials are reluctant to speak out publicly, but at Fallujah’s children’s hospital one doctor told Sky News in the past month she has seen one or two cases of birth deformities every day.

An opthalmologist said he deals with four or five cases of newborn babies every week suffering from some form of eye deformity  – and that has risen in the last two years.  

What Is the US Trying to Hide in Fallujah?

FALLUJAH, Iraq (Bella Ciao) January 19, 2005 – Also last November [2004], another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area, Abu Sabah told me, “They [U.S. military] used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fell from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.”

He explained that pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burned people’s skin even when water was dumped on their bodies, which is the effect of phosphorous weapons, as well as napalm. “People suffered so much from these, both civilians and fighters alike,” he said.

My friend Suthir [name changed to protect identity] was a member of one of the Iraqi Red Crescent relief convoys that was allowed into Fallujah at the end of November.

“I’m sure the Americans committed bad things there, but who can discover and say this?” she said when speaking of what she saw of the devastated city. “They didn’t allow us to go to the Julan area or any of the others where there was heavy fighting, and I’m sure that is where the horrible things took place.”

“The Americans didn’t let us in the places where everyone said there was napalm used,” she added. “Julan and those places where the heaviest fighting was, nobody is allowed to go there.”

…
“In the center of the Julan Quarter they are removing entire homes which have been bombed, meanwhile most of the homes that were bombed are left as they were. Why are they doing this?”

According to him, this was also done in the Nazal, Mualmeen, Jubail, and Shuhada’a districts, and the military began to do this after Eid, which was after Nov. 20 [2004].

He told me he has watched the military use bulldozers to push the soil into piles and load it onto trucks to carry away. This was done in the Julan and Jimouriya quarters of the city, which is of course where the heaviest fighting occurred during the siege, as this was where resistance was the fiercest.

“At least two kilometers [1.2 mi.] of soil were removed,” he explained. “Exactly as they did at Baghdad Airport after the heavy battles there during the invasion and the Americans used their special weapons.”

He explained that in certain areas where the military used “special munitions,” 200 square meters [2,150 sq. ft.] of soil was being removed from each blast site.

In addition, many of his friends have told him that the military brought in water-tanker trucks to power blast the streets, although he hadn’t seen this himself.

“They went around to every house and have shot the water tanks,” he continued. “As if they are trying to hide the evidence of chemical weapons in the water, but they only did this in some areas, such as Julan and in the souk [market] there as well.” He first saw this having been done after Dec. 20 [2004].

Fallujah: Napalm By Any Other Name
DailyKos by Avila – Nov. 21, 2004

Veteran journalist Simon Jenkins made just this point in a striking piece recently in the British Sunday Times (A wrecked nation, a desert, a ghost town. And this will be called victory). “In Vietnam,” he wrote, “the Americans destroyed the village to save it. In Iraq we destroy the city to save it.”

It seems that, as in Vietnam where napalm and white phosphorus — unbearably gruesome weapons — were commonly employed, American troops have already used white phosphorus in Falluja. (“Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.”)

My comment in 2005 – Cost of Iraq War

A Dossier – Remembering Fallujah large pdf file!

On 9 November, 2005 the Italian state-run broadcaster RAI ran a documentary titled “Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre” depicting what it alleges was the United States’ use of white phosphorus (WP) in the attack causing insurgents and civilians to be killed or injured by chemical burns . The effects of WP are very characteristic. The resulting bodies were partially turned into what appears to be ash, but sometimes the hands of the bodies had skin or skin layers peeled off and hanging like gloves instead. The documentary further claims that the United States used incendiary MK-77 bombs (similar to napalm). The use of incendiary weapons against civilians is illegal by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980), however the US is not a signatory. Moreover, the 1983 Chemical Weapons Convention (signed by the US) prohibit the use of the chemical properties of white phosphorus against personnel. The documentary stated:

    “WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out… We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions.”

The US State Department initially denied using white phosphorus as a munition, a claim later contradicted by the Department of Defense when bloggers discovered a US Army magazine had run a story detailing its use in Fallujah. The US government maintains its denial of use against civilians, while trying to justify the offensive use of WP against enemy combatants. However, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, quoted by the RAI documentary, WP is allowed as an illumination device, not as an offensive weapon, for which its chemical properties are put to use. An article in Washington Post exactly a year before also pointed out the use of White Phosphorus in the battle, but attracted little attention.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Will Republicans Return Rev. Hagee Hate Money?

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John McCain was quick(well sort of) to throw Rev Hagee under the Straight Talk Express but I wonder just how fast he plans to send back the money he took from him?

Cross posted @ Doing My Part For The Left and Texas Kaos
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The Straight Talk Express has had to move to fund raisers featuring old Shrub from fancy locations like the Phoenix Convention Center and a Hotel Ballroom in Utah to private homes since they couldn’t sell enough tickets to guarantee more attendees than protesters, John might be a little strapped for cash. We all know the fund raising gimmick in Florida last year didn’t work.

I wonder how many of these other fine upstanding Republicans will return Rev. Hate- oops Hagee’s hate money to him.  You know John Cornyn is always talking about how much he cares about Veterans but always seems to come out smelling like a cow pie when the truth is known.  Now of course old Box Turtle has been mighty quiet about Rev. Hagee.

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It seems like Texans have a clear choice.  They can either vote for two losers who will take hate money from Hagee or we can elect Democrats who actually care about Texas and Texans.  I know I’m voting for Rick Noriega for TX-US Senate as well as whoever gets the Democratic Nomination for President.

The Offensive Candidate

In a Salon article by Juan Cole about problems the McCain campaign is developing with Arab-American voters in swing states like Michigan and Ohio, I was struck by this paragraph as being indicative of the aging candidate’s use of offensive language relating to large groups of citizens:

The minority of Arab-Americans who are Muslim have been disturbed at McCain’s constant use of the adjective “Islamic” when referring to terrorists. (Muslims use the word “Islamic” to refer to the ideals of their religion, and so might refer to a “Muslim criminal,” but an “Islamic criminal” would be a contradiction in terms.) McCain’s campaign says he will continue to use the word. (This obstinacy recalls his vow in 2000 to continue to use the word “gook” when referring to the Viet Cong, a term that offended Asian-Americans. At length McCain relented and dropped the slur.)

This seems to be a problem of personality which opens the door to many potential problems in the future. As we become a more and more diverse population – something the success of Obama in gaining support for his nomination among Democrats makes clear – it will be more and more incumbent on leaders to recognize and adjust to changes in accepted language. We have come a long way since my childhood in the fifties in recognizing the unfortunate use of scandalous pejoratives relating to African Americans, Hispanics, Italians, Native Americans, the Irish and so many other ethnic and immigrant groups.

McCain’s use of language that offends particular groups and his seeming inability or unwillingness to change that use makes him a much less attractive presidential model.

Under The LobsterScope

The Lament of Scottie McClellan

It’s somewhat sad to see what is happening to Scottie McClellan. Even when he was spinning like an Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuge, I always felt a strange kind of sympathy for Scottie. Now I know why. I recognized a sliver of humanity in him that is lacking in all other Bushite sycophants. McClellan has come (oh, I don’t know…) 60% clean in his new tell-part book and the White House and their apologists are calling him ‘Benedict Arnold’, ‘a traitor’, ‘a turncoat’, a ‘Hamas apologist’ (???), and “probably the worst White House press secretary in recent memory.”

Maybe McClellan and Bill Richardson can start a club. They can call it ‘The Judas Club’. It will be for anyone that served in an administration and later lived to regret it. McClellan’s got it really bad (except for his anticipated book sales) because even the left is piling on. Why did he go out there day after day after day and spin like a break dancer for an administration that he knew didn’t know how to govern or how to tell the truth? Isn’t it too late for Scottie to come to Jesus?

Well, I say, ‘better now than after the administration is out of power’. No matter how badly you screw up there is always the best thing for you to do now. And if you can make a profit off it, so much the better. This is fucking America, and don’t you ever forget it.

As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided. In these pages, I’ve tried to come to grips with some of the truths that life inside the White House bubble obscured.

It was so hard to hate Scottie, even when he took weaseldom to previously unheard of levels.

GREGORY: Scott … to make a general observation here, in a previous administration, if a press secretary had given the sort of answers you’ve just given … Republicans would have hammered them as having a kind of legalistic and sleazy defense. I mean, the reality is that you’re parsing words, and you’ve been doing it for a few days now. So does the president think Karl Rove did something wrong, or doesn’t he?

McCLELLAN: No, David, I’m not at all. I told you and the president told you earlier today that we don’t want to prejudge the outcome of an ongoing investigation. And I think we’ve been round and round on this for two days now…

GREGORY: … When you’re dealing with a covert operative … a senior official of the government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way, shape or form. Does the president agree with that or not?

McCLELLAN: Again, we’ve been round and round on this for a couple of days now. I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve said the previous two days.

GREGORY: That’s a different question, and it’s not round and round —

McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier.

GREGORY: It has nothing to do with the investigation, Scott, and you know it.

McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier today, and the president said he’s not —

[Pitch, volume and tempo are rising…]

GREGORY: That’s a dodge to my question. It has nothing to do with the investigation. Is it appropriate for a senior official to speak about a covert agent in any way, shape or form without first finding out whether that person is working as a covert officer?

McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, you’re wrong. This is all relating to questions about an ongoing investigation, and I’ve been through this.

GREGORY: If I wanted to ask you about an ongoing investigation, I would ask you about the statute, and I’m not doing that. [Very exasperated.]

McCLELLAN: I think we’ve exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days.

GREGORY: You haven’t even scratched the surface.

But to reminisce about those days is to pick at a scab. Scottie McClellan feels remorse about his performance during l’affaire Plame and now he’s blaming the press for not asking tougher questions. As Karl Rove said, McClellan sounds like a left-wing blogger. I don’t want to betray confidences, but I have it first-hand from a McClatchey White House reporter than McClellan was a swell guy that always tried to tell the truth. It’s just that, nine times out of ten, the truth wasn’t on the menu. And we’ve all regretted going to a bad restaurant or two.

Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegations that the media was soft on the White House are “total crap,” adding that advisers of President Bush are “bewildered and puzzled” by the allegations in McClellan’s new book.

“It’s almost like we’re witnessing an out-of-body experience,” Bartlett said of McClellan. “We’re hearing from a completely different person we didn’t have any insight into.”

Deep down, Scottie McClellan had, maybe not an ounce, but a gram of humanity and that’s something that the Dan Bartlett’s of the world just don’t have any insight into. If you want ‘insight’, you probably should ask Speaker Pelosi.

”I almost wonder how anybody associated with this war, unless they were of completely different philosophy, would not come to the conclusion that this war is a grotesque mistake, that it was misrepresented from the start, not prepared for correctly,” said Pelosi.

”This war is a big lie. It was a lie to begin with..and it continues to be a lie..at some point, maybe the lies just got to be too heavy for him to carry,” she said of the former White House spokesman.

Did McClellan ask for forgiveness? If he did, it will be forthcoming.

The Lament of Scottie McClellan

It’s somewhat sad to see what is happening to Scottie McClellan. Even when he was spinning like an Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuge, I always felt a strange kind of sympathy for Scottie. Now I know why. I recognized a sliver of humanity in him that is lacking in all other Bushite sycophants. McClellan has come (oh, I don’t know…) 60% clean in his new tell-part book and the White House and their apologists are calling him ‘Benedict Arnold’, ‘a traitor’, ‘a turncoat’, a ‘Hamas apologist’ (???), and “probably the worst White House press secretary in recent memory.”

Maybe McClellan and Bill Richardson can start a club. They can call it ‘The Judas Club’. It will be for anyone that served in an administration and later lived to regret it. McClellan’s got it really bad (except for his anticipated book sales) because even the left is piling on. Why did he go out there day after day after day and spin like a break dancer for an administration that he knew didn’t know how to govern or how to tell the truth? Isn’t it too late for Scottie to come to Jesus?

Well, I say, ‘better now than after the administration is out of power’. No matter how badly you screw up there is always the best thing for you to do now. And if you can make a profit off it, so much the better. This is fucking America, and don’t you ever forget it.

As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided. In these pages, I’ve tried to come to grips with some of the truths that life inside the White House bubble obscured.

It was so hard to hate Scottie, even when he took weaseldom to previously unheard of levels.

GREGORY: Scott … to make a general observation here, in a previous administration, if a press secretary had given the sort of answers you’ve just given … Republicans would have hammered them as having a kind of legalistic and sleazy defense. I mean, the reality is that you’re parsing words, and you’ve been doing it for a few days now. So does the president think Karl Rove did something wrong, or doesn’t he?

McCLELLAN: No, David, I’m not at all. I told you and the president told you earlier today that we don’t want to prejudge the outcome of an ongoing investigation. And I think we’ve been round and round on this for two days now…

GREGORY: … When you’re dealing with a covert operative … a senior official of the government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way, shape or form. Does the president agree with that or not?

McCLELLAN: Again, we’ve been round and round on this for a couple of days now. I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve said the previous two days.

GREGORY: That’s a different question, and it’s not round and round —

McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier.

GREGORY: It has nothing to do with the investigation, Scott, and you know it.

McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier today, and the president said he’s not —

[Pitch, volume and tempo are rising…]

GREGORY: That’s a dodge to my question. It has nothing to do with the investigation. Is it appropriate for a senior official to speak about a covert agent in any way, shape or form without first finding out whether that person is working as a covert officer?

McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, you’re wrong. This is all relating to questions about an ongoing investigation, and I’ve been through this.

GREGORY: If I wanted to ask you about an ongoing investigation, I would ask you about the statute, and I’m not doing that. [Very exasperated.]

McCLELLAN: I think we’ve exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days.

GREGORY: You haven’t even scratched the surface.

Q. It hasn’t started.

But to reminisce about those days is to pick at a scab. Scottie McClellan feels remorse about his performance during l’affaire Plame and now he’s blaming the press for not asking tougher questions. As Karl Rove said, McClellan sounds like a left-wing blogger. I don’t want to betray confidences, but I have it first-hand from a McClatchey White House reporter than McClellan was a swell guy that always tried to tell the truth. It’s just that, nine times out of ten, the truth wasn’t on the menu. And we’ve all regretted going to a bad restaurant or two.

Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegations that the media was soft on the White House are “total crap,” adding that advisers of President Bush are “bewildered and puzzled” by the allegations in McClellan’s new book.

“It’s almost like we’re witnessing an out-of-body experience,” Bartlett said of McClellan. “We’re hearing from a completely different person we didn’t have any insight into.”

Deep down, Scottie McClellan had, maybe not an ounce, but a gram of humanity and that’s something that the Dan Bartlett’s of the world just don’t have any insight into.

The Lament of Scottie McClellan

It’s somewhat sad to see what is happening to Scottie McClellan. Even when he was spinning like an Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuge, I always felt a strange kind of sympathy for Scottie. Now I know why. I recognized a sliver of humanity in him that is lacking in all other Bushite sycophants. McClellan has come (oh, I don’t know…) 60% clean in his new tell-part book and the White House and their apologists are calling him ‘Benedict Arnold’, ‘a traitor’, ‘a turncoat’, a ‘Hamas apologist’ (???), and “probably the worst White House press secretary in recent memory.”

Maybe McClellan and Bill Richardson can start a club. They can call it ‘The Judas Club’. It will be for anyone that served in an administration and later lived to regret it. McClellan’s got it really bad (except for his anticipated book sales) because even the left is piling on. Why did he go out there day after day after day and spin like a break dancer for an administration that he knew didn’t know how to govern or how to tell the truth? Isn’t it too late for Scottie to come to Jesus?

Well, I say, ‘better now than after the administration is out of power’. No matter how badly you screw up there is always the best thing for you to do now. And if you can make a profit off it, so much the better. This is fucking America, and don’t you ever forget it.

As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided. In these pages, I’ve tried to come to grips with some of the truths that life inside the White House bubble obscured.

It was so hard to hate Scottie, even when he took weaseldom to previously unheard of levels.

GREGORY: Scott … to make a general observation here, in a previous administration, if a press secretary had given the sort of answers you’ve just given … Republicans would have hammered them as having a kind of legalistic and sleazy defense. I mean, the reality is that you’re parsing words, and you’ve been doing it for a few days now. So does the president think Karl Rove did something wrong, or doesn’t he?

McCLELLAN: No, David, I’m not at all. I told you and the president told you earlier today that we don’t want to prejudge the outcome of an ongoing investigation. And I think we’ve been round and round on this for two days now…

GREGORY: … When you’re dealing with a covert operative … a senior official of the government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way, shape or form. Does the president agree with that or not?

McCLELLAN: Again, we’ve been round and round on this for a couple of days now. I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve said the previous two days.

GREGORY: That’s a different question, and it’s not round and round —

McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier.

GREGORY: It has nothing to do with the investigation, Scott, and you know it.

McCLELLAN: You heard from the president earlier today, and the president said he’s not —

[Pitch, volume and tempo are rising…]

GREGORY: That’s a dodge to my question. It has nothing to do with the investigation. Is it appropriate for a senior official to speak about a covert agent in any way, shape or form without first finding out whether that person is working as a covert officer?

McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, you’re wrong. This is all relating to questions about an ongoing investigation, and I’ve been through this.

GREGORY: If I wanted to ask you about an ongoing investigation, I would ask you about the statute, and I’m not doing that. [Very exasperated.]

McCLELLAN: I think we’ve exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days.

GREGORY: You haven’t even scratched the surface.

Q. It hasn’t started.

But to reminisce about those days is to pick at a scab. Scottie McClellan feels remorse about his performance during l’affaire Plame and now he’s blaming the press for not asking tougher questions. As Karl Rove said, McClellan sounds like a left-wing blogger. I don’t want to betray confidences, but I have it first-hand from a McClatchey White House reporter than McClellan was a swell guy that always tried to tell the truth. It’s just that, nine times out of ten, the truth wasn’t on the menu. And we’ve all regretted going to a bad restaurant or two.

The Lament of Scottie McClellan

It’s somewhat sad to see what is happening to Scottie McClellan. Even when he was spinning like an Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuge, I always felt a strange kind of sympathy for Scottie. Now I know why. I recognized a sliver of humanity in him that is lacking in all other Bushite sycophants. McClellan has come (oh, I don’t know…) 60% clean in his new tell-part book and the White House and their apologists are calling him ‘Benedict Arnold’, ‘a traitor’, ‘a turncoat’, a ‘Hamas apologist’ (???), and “probably the worst White House press secretary in recent memory.”

Maybe McClellan and Bill Richardson can start a club. They can call it ‘The Judas Club’. It will be for anyone that served in an administration and later lived to regret it. McClellan’s got it really bad (except for his anticipated book sales) because even the left is piling on. Why did he go out there day after day after day and spin like a break dancer for an administration that he knew didn’t know how to govern or how to tell the truth? Isn’t it too late for Scottie to come to Jesus?

Well, I say, ‘better now than after the administration is out of power’. No matter how badly you screw up there is always the best thing for you to do now. And if you can make a profit off it, so much the better. This is fucking America, and don’t you ever forget it.

As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided. In these pages, I’ve tried to come to grips with some of the truths that life inside the White House bubble obscured.