McCLELLAN'S BOOK FINALLY ARRIVES

There was a teaser about former Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new book last Fall and the teaser was a good indicator of what was to come. The Politico purchased a copy and has given us some of the more damaging assertions:

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

This is getting some coverage on Memeo and I couldn't resist reading what some of the wingnuts had to say. On the Weekly Standard Blog, myth-maker Stephen F. Hayes denigrates McClellan for not being up to the job. According to MacsMind:

Point of fact a contact at the White House told me, “The fact is that Scott wasn’t ready for this job, and very much had the the reputation of a whiner.”

So, we get the standard response from the conservatives: denigrate the messenger.