KEY POINTS:
He was the most plodding, the most robotic, and - until this week - apparently the most loyal of presidential spokesmen. But now Scott McClellan, White House press secretary for George W. Bush between 2003 and 2006, has delivered this unhappy Administration its most wounding critique by one of its erstwhile senior officials.
What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception is no falsely touted insider memoir, jazzed up with a few titillating anecdotes to boost sales. It is a 341-page disquisition on Bush, on his misbegotten war in Iraq, and on his entire conduct of the presidency, which McClellan says was built on the use of propaganda, and on the technique of government as permanent campaign.
"History appears poised to confirm," he writes in arguably the most damning paragraph of a book full of them, "that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now ... What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."
And those are not the words of a disgruntled outsider, summoned to the colours and then casually tossed aside. McClellan largely owes his career to Bush.
He was spokesman for Bush and part of the "Texas Mafia" with the likes of Karl Rove and Karen Hughes.
A man with deep political connections in the Texan capital, Austin, McClellan first worked for then Governor Bush in early 1999. He was travelling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 before becoming chief deputy White House spokesman in the first Bush term.
In July 2003, he took over from Ari Fleischer and served as press secretary for almost three years.
It was a wretched period. His boss did win a narrow re-election in 2004 but after that it was downhill all the way.
The draining CIA leak affair (in which McClellan claims he was misled by both Rove, Bush's closest adviser, and by Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff who was ultimately convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice) was followed by Hurricane Katrina and the Administration's disastrously botched response, and by ever growing public disenchantment with the war. By the time McClellan was eased out in April 2006, Bush had become one of the most unpopular US Presidents of recent times, and has remained so ever since.
In its own words, What Happened is a chronicle of "how the presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course". Its longer-term impact may be limited, by dint of the fact that the Bush presidency has sunk so low that it can hardly fall further.
McClellan's "revelations" moreover merely confirm what all but the most blinkered supporters of the 43rd President have long since realised. But the immediate reaction of the Bush camp has been predictably bitter.
Officially, the White House brushes off the book. But unofficially the President's men are vitriolic, claiming McClellan didn't know what was going on but has turned on his former boss to boost his book royalties.
"It shows how out of the loop he was," Rove, the man once known as "Bush's Brain", said on Fox News where he is now a commentator.
"This doesn't sound like Scott, it sounds like a left-wing blogger. I don't remember him speaking up [about the concerns laid out in the book] at the time."
What Happened may throw new light on the enduring mystery of the war: why exactly did Bush decide to invade a country that even he knew had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks that triggered his "war on terror?"
The Administration's real motive for war, McClellan declares, was the neo-conservative dream of creating a democratic Iraq that would pave the way for an enduring peace in the region.
What's truly astounding is his assertion that, contrary to everything the President continues to insist, Bush would take his war back if he could.
McClellan himself had a consistently gloomy demeanour and lacked the eloquence or sense of humour required to extricate himself from tight corners in the press room. Rarely did he come out looking like a star.
Equally rarely, however, did he look like a man secretly thirsting for revenge, even when he was replaced in early 2006 by conservative broadcaster Tony Snow.
Today McClellan has found his words, in print. He professes still to like and admire his old boss. To which Bush can only conclude, with friends like this, who needs enemies?
- INDEPENDENT
