ADMINISTRATION
Bush's Former Mouthpiece Tells All
In his "scathing" new memoir,
which will be released next week, former White House press secretary
Scott McClellan accuses his former colleagues in the Bush
administration of not
being
"open and forthright on Iraq,"
arguing that they engaged in a "political
propaganda campaign to sell the
war to the American people."
President Bush "signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was
less than candid and honest," writes McClellan, "not
employing out-and-out deception but by shading the truth."
McClellan, who is "the first
longtime Bush aide to put such
harsh criticism between hard
covers," also claims in his book that
former Bush adviser Karl Rove and former chief of staff to Vice
President Cheney Scooter Libby "allowed" and even "encouraged" him to
"repeat
a lie" about their involvement
in the leaking of CIA agent Valerie
Plame's identity. In one shocking revelation, McClellan "suggests
that Libby
and Rove secretly colluded to
get their stories
straight at a time when federal investigators were hot on the Plame
case." The White House reacted with indignation yesterday, calling
McClellan "disgruntled
about his experience at the
White House." Though current White
House Press Secretary Dana Perino initially said Bush was not
likely to comment on the book, she later told CNN that Bush "didn't
recognize the same Scott
McClellan that he hired and worked with
for so many years." On background, White House aides were even more
blunt, telling MSNBC's Kevin Corke that McClellan is a "traitor."
LOYAL
BUSHIES STRIKE BACK: Bush was
only one voice in a "chorus"
of current and former Bush administration officials pushing
back against McClellan's
explosive allegations, often in very
personal terms. "This now strikes me as self-serving,
disingenuous and unprofessional,"
former Homeland Security Adviser
Fran Townsend said on CNN. Rove, whom McClellan describes in the book
as willing "to
push the envelope to the limit of what's permissible ethically or
legally," responded on Fox News
by calling McClellan
"irresponsible," adding that he "sounds
like a left-wing blogger."
Former White House Counselor Dan
Bartlett called allegations in the book "total
crap," saying that in hearing
McClellan's criticisms, "it's
almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience." McClellan's
predecessor, Ari Fleischer, told NPR that he was "heartbroken"
by the harsh tone of the book. Interviewing Fleischer for the CBS
Evening News last night, Katie Couric noted that the former Bush
administration officials now criticizing McClellan all sound like they "are
operating out of the same playbook"
by claiming "this doesn't sound
like the Scott McClellan they knew."
THE
USUAL AUTOMATIC SMEAR RESPONSE:
McClellan is experiencing the same automatic
smear
response the White House deploys
against former allies who dare to
criticize the administration, including former Fed Chairman Alan
Greenspan and former head of
faith-based initiatives John
DiIulio. In 2004, when Bush's
first Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill
said publicly that "the Bush administration began
planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days"
after Bush
took office, White House aides pushed back hard with personal attacks.
One senior official told CNN that "we didn't listen to [O'Neill's]
wacky ideas when he was in the White House, why
should we start listening to him now."
Last year, Bush's
former chief campaign strategist Matthew Dowd publicly broke with the
President by claiming that Bush had "become
more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in."
Bartlett dismissed
Dowd's criticisms by saying Dowd had been "going
through a lot of personal turmoil."
Ironically, before he published
his own criticisms, McClellan was often the one responding to critical
books as the White House's top spokesperson. In 2004, when former
counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote a book charging that
President Bush had "ignored
terrorism for months" before
9/11, McClellan led the White House counter-charge,
claiming that Clarke was a
bitter ex-employee who "wanted
to be the deputy secretary of the
Homeland Security Department."
MCCLELLAN'S
CREDIBILITY CHALLENGE:
As ABC News's Jake Tapper pointed
out yesterday, "some of the same
language now being used to trash
McClellan he himself used to trash previous administration authors."
For instance, when Clarke published his tell-all book, McClellan
claimed he was doing it for money because "he has written a book and he
certainly wants to go out there and promote
that book." But McClellan's
credibility challenge goes beyond the
fact that he once attacked people in his current position. McClellan
charges the White House with not being "open
and
forthright on Iraq," which is a
drastic shift from his past
rhetoric regarding the war. As a White House spokesperson, McClellan
repeatedly defended the conduct of the war,
justified the case that
was
made to launch it, and defended Bush's handling of the war. "There were
irresponsible and unfounded accusations being made against
the administration, suggesting that we had manipulated or misused that
intelligence. That
was flat-out false," said
McClellan in a 2006 press briefing. "We've
been very straightforward about where we are,
in terms of the
theater in Iraq," he claimed in another. In 2004, he insisted, "This
President is someone I
think the American people
recognize as a
straight shooter."
MEDIA -- CNN'S YELLIN SAYS NETWORK EXECUTIVES PUSHED PRO-WAR STORIES: Last night, Jessica Yellin, a CNN journalist who covered the White House for ABC News in 2002 and 2003, said that during the lead-up to the Iraq war, "the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives" to present the war in a way "that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings." She said that "the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives." "They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes," Yellin added. Last September, Katie Couric said she felt "corporate pressure" from NBC executives to "not rock the boat," particularly after a tough interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Former MSNBC pundit Phil Donahue, on last year's award-winning Bill Moyers documentary, said, "Our producers were instructed to have two conservatives for every liberal." Salon's Glenn Greenwald emphasizes that, though there was in fact a vigorous debate about the war in 2002 and 2003, journalists "ignored it and silenced it because their jobs didn't permit them to highlight those questions."
ADMINISTRATION -- TOP DHS OFFICIAL CRITICIZES ADMINISTRATION USE OF 'WAR ON TERROR': The Financial Times reports that Charles Allen, the senior intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said that the United States should stop using the term "war on terror." "[It] has nothing to do with political correctness," Allen said. "It is interpreted in the Muslim world as a war on Islam and we don't need this." Several administration officials have criticized the use of the phrase. In September, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, banned the phrase "Global War on Terror" from "any future correspondence." But in November, Bush attacked critics of the term "war on terror," saying that "people who deny we are at war are either being disingenuous or naive." DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff disagreed with Allen. "We are at war with terrorism, and its underlying ideology -- not Islam -- and we've gone out of our way to make that point," said his spokesperson, Russ Knocke. "In truth, war has been declared upon us." But DHS told employees last month "not to describe extremists as 'jihadists,'" stating that linking Islam to terrorism offends moderate Muslims and gives extremists "religious legitimacy." "While we want to be mindful to the way our messages are heard by Muslim audiences, we also think war on terror accurately describes the fight we are in," echoed National Security Council spokesperson Gordon Johndroe.
IRAQ -- FALLUJAH RESIDENTS SAY SOME MARINES ARE 'ACTING AS CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES': At an entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah earlier this week, "Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand." According to Anad, one side of the coin asked, "Where will you spend eternity?" while the other was imprinted with Gospel verse. The incident apparently was not isolated. McClatchy reports that "residents of the city are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries," saying that "some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out the coins for two days in what they call a 'humiliating' attempt to convert them to Christianity." Sheikh Mohammed Amin Abdel Hadi, leader of a Sunni endowment that oversees the city's religious establishments, said, "We say to the occupiers to stop this," adding that the American efforts to promote Christianity in Fallujah "can cause strife between the Iraqis and especially between Muslim and Christians." The U.S. military has said they are "investigating" the matter.
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Speaking at the Air Force
Academy commencement, President Bush acknowledged
that his administration
is "learning as we go" in Iraq.
Bush offered a "nod to realities that have made the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars more
protracted than his
administration had once expected."
CQ writes although Attorney General Michael Mukasey was supposed to
be more independent than his predecessor, he has largely been "Gonzales,
take two." "He's
just Alberto Gonzales with slightly more brains,
but with no ability to say 'no' to the president," said Bruce
Fein, a
former Justice Department official in the Reagan administration.
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) is calling
on Scott McClellan to
testify under
oath before the House
Judiciary Committee about the
"earth-shattering" allegations
in his new book.
Reacting to McClellan's book, Secretary
of State
Condoleezza Rice said, "I'm
not going to comment on a book
that I haven't read but I will say”
the threat from Saddam Hussein "was well understood." She added, "I
would really ask do
people really believe that he was not a threat
to the international
community?"
Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, the
top U.S. Navy official in the Persian
Gulf, warned that war
with Iran would be "pretty
disastrous," with "echoes
and aftershocks" reverberating
throughout the region. Cosgriff added that "we
have years" to deal with Iran's
nuclear program.
More than 100 countries "have reached
an
agreement on a treaty which
would ban current designs
of
cluster bombs." However,
the United
States did not join the ban,
calling the controversial munitions "an integral, legitimate part of
its arsenal." A Pentagon spokesman said the bombs "have demonstrated
military utility."
Col.
Morris Davis, who spoke out
against the military tribunals at
Guantanamo Bay, "said he
was denied a medal for his two years
of work building military
commissions cases against terrorism
suspects because he resigned and later
spoke out about problems in the
Pentagon's Office of Military
Commissions."
Some of the nation's top
scientists "sharply
criticized the
diminished role of science in the United States"
at the World Science Festival today. "They cited U.S. officials and
others questioning scientific evidence of climate change, the
reluctance to federally fund stem cell research, and some
U.S. officials casting doubt on evolution
as examples that have
damaged America's international standing."
And finally: Dunkin' Donuts has
yanked
a commercial featuring tv
cooking personality Rachael Ray because
of complaints that she is promoting terrorism. In the ad, "the
domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh,
a traditional headdress worn by Arab men." Right-wing blogger
Michelle
Malkin was pleased with the response, stating, "It's refreshing to see
an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans
opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists." The scarf has also been
spotted on Sen.
John McCain's (R-AZ) daughter.
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The research team that brings you The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org needs summer interns! Click here for more information.
New York Gov. David Paterson
(D) "has directed all state agencies to
begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex
marriages performed in
other jurisdictions, like
Massachusetts, California and
Canada." In a message to LGBT leaders, Paterson called the move "a
strong step toward marriage equality."
LOUISIANA:
"Historic New Orleans is reinventing itself as it recovers from
Hurricane Katrina, with efforts under way to help make this a safer,
more vibrant city," according to Mayor Ray Nagin.
OREGON:
Portland
sponsors project to help "white people better understand the effect
gentrification can have on the city's longtime black and
other-minority neighborhoods."
ENVIRONMENT:
"The West Coast's metropolitan areas had among the lowest carbon
emissions per capita in the country in 2005, according to a new ranking
of 100 urban areas."
THINK
PROGRESS: Highlights from the
Sidney Hillman Foundation journalism
awards.
WONK
ROOM: Fox News blames
"mainstream media" for recession.
DAILY
DISH: New poll shows that for
the first time ever a majority of
Californians support same-sex marriage.
OLIVER
WILLIS: MSNBC's David Gregory
rewrites history and claims the press
did a good job on Iraq.
"I've known this President a long time, and this President is someone I
think the American people recognize as a straight shooter."
-- Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, 7/1/04
VERSUS
"Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new
memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a
sophisticated 'political propaganda campaign' led by President Bush and
aimed at 'manipulating sources of public opinion' and 'downplaying the
major reason for going to war.'"
-- Washington Post, 5/28/08
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