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White House Strikes Back: McClellan 'Is Disgruntled'

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The Washington Post

Published: May 29, 2008

Updated: 05/29/2008 12:22 am

WASHINGTON - As President Bush's press secretary, Scott McClellan was a dutiful practitioner of the swift, efficient and highly coordinated strategy the White House typically employs to take on Bush's critics.

On Wednesday, McClellan got a taste of life on the other side.

As news of McClellan's new tell-all book - in which he calls the war in Iraq a "strategic blunder" and accuses Bush of engaging in "self-deception" - dominated the airwaves, the White House and a tight-knit group of former aides pushed back.

They sought to paint the former press secretary as a disgruntled man trying to redeem his own reputation after long remaining silent about concerns he is suddenly taking public.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," said Dana Perino, the current White House press secretary.

"For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew."

Bush 'Puzzled' And 'Disappointed'

She said Bush was "surprised" by McClellan's assertions.

"He is puzzled, and he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years."

Bush was "disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts, he never came to him or anyone else on the staff," she said.

Perino said the reports on the book had been described to Bush, and that she did not expect him to comment.

"He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she said.

"For him to do this now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional," Fran Townsend, former head of the White House-based counterterrorism office, said of McClellan.

Former top aide Karl Rove told Fox News, "If he had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them. And frankly, I don't remember him speaking up about these things. I don't remember a single word."

Richard Clarke, another former counterterrorism adviser who also came out with a book critical of administration policy, said he understands McClellan's thinking.

Clarke said he, too, was harshly criticized, saying, "I can show you the tire tracks."

Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett said it was "misguided for him McClellan to make these kind of broad accusations and draw these big conclusions about the president."

Several former Bush administration officials have written tell-all accounts.

In a book published this month, retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez accuses Bush and his top advisers of "gross incompetence and dereliction of duty" for their handling of the Iraq war.

But none was as close to Bush or his inner circle as McClellan, 40, an amiable Texas native widely known for his cautious demeanor.

He began in politics managing several state election campaigns in the 1990s for his mother, who became Texas comptroller. Bush confidante Karen Hughes recruited him to the governor's mansion.

Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary before McClellan took over in 2003, said he first met McClellan in Austin in 1999 when the two worked on the Bush presidential campaign.

"That's one of the reasons this book comes as such a shock," Fleischer said. "It comes from the last person that anyone would have thought would have said these things or written these things. ... All you can do is scratch your head when you see how far he's turned."

Trent Duffy, who worked as McClellan's deputy for more than two years, said of the avid University of Texas sports fan: "Tomorrow maybe we're going to learn he's rooting for the Oklahoma Sooners.

"Here's a man who owes his whole career to George W. Bush, and here he's stabbing him in the back and no one knows why," Duffy said. "He appears to be dancing on his political grave for cash."

McClellan Explains Shift

McClellan suggests in his preface that he expected a negative reaction.

"My friends and former colleagues who lived and worked or are still living and working inside that bubble may not be happy with the perspective I present here," he wrote.

The former press secretary - the second of four so far in Bush's presidency - explained his dramatic shift from loyal defender to fierce critic as a difficult act of personal contrition, a way, he wrote, to learn from his mistakes, be true to his Christian faith and become a better person. "I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be," McClellan wrote.

He blames the media, calling them "complicit enablers" in the White House campaign to manipulate public opinion toward a need for war.

In the book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan said he retains great admiration for Bush but portrays the president as stubborn and isolated.

Calling the Iraq war "unnecessary" and a "strategic blunder," McClellan alleges that senior administration officials began a campaign in 2002 to "aggressively sell the war," even as he and other officials insisted that all options were on the table.

He also accuses Rove of misleading him about the leak of a CIA officer's name. He suggests that Rove and former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may have improperly met to discuss the case. Perino and other officials sharply criticized that assertion.

Information from The New York Times and The Associated Press was used in this report.

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