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Cult Of Deception

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By MAUREEN DOWD

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 3, 2008

WASHINGTON - They say that every president gets the psychoanalyst he deserves. And every Hamlet gets his Rosencrantz.

So now comes Scott McClellan, once the most loyal of the Texas Bushies, to reveal "What Happened," as the title of his book promises, to turn W. from a genial, humble, bipartisan good ol' boy to a delusional, disconnected, arrogant, ideological flop.

Although his analytical skills are extremely limited, the former White House press secretary - Secret Service code name Matrix - takes a stab at illuminating Junior's bumpy and improbable boomerang journey from family black sheep and famous screw-up back to family black sheep and famous screw-up.

How did W. start out wanting to restore honor and dignity to the White House and end up scraping all the honor and dignity off the White House?

It turns out that our president is a one-man refutation of Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller "Blink," about the value of trusting your gut.

Every gut instinct he had was wildly off the mark and hideously damaging to all concerned.

It seems that if you trust your gut without ever feeding your gut any facts or news or contrary opinions, if you keep your gut on a steady diet of grandiosity, ignorance, sycophants, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, those snap decisions can be ruinous.

McClellan recalled the first time that he had begun to suspect that W. might be just another dissembling pol: when he overheard his boss, during his 2000 bid, ludicrously telling a supporter that he couldn't remember, from his wild partying days, if he had tried cocaine.

"He isn't the kind of person to flat-out lie," McClellan said, but added, "I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true." He'd see a lot more of it over the next six years before Bush tearfully booted him out.

W.'s dwindling cadre hit back hard. In Stockholm, Sweden, Condi - labeled "sometimes too accommodating" by the author - scoffed: "The president was very clear about the reasons for going to war."

She's right. He was very clear about it being because of WMD. Then he was very clear about it being to rid the world of a tyrant. Then he was very clear about it being to spread democracy. When that didn't work, he was very clear about it being that we can't leave because we can't leave.

He was always wrong, but always very clear.

Maureen Dowd is a columnist for The New York Times.

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