![]() ![]() The other criticisms don’t really undermine McClellan’s case either. Since McClellan signed off on the work, the point is moot anyway. McClellan’s publisher, Peter Osnos, denies that a ghostwriter worked over McClellan’s draft (though an extra editor, Karl Weber, was brought in to meet the fast publishing deadline). (He also includes a critique of the press, which he says acted as “deferential, complicit enablers” of Bush administration “propaganda.”) McClellan outlines the “obfuscation, dissembling, and lack of intellectual honesty that helped take our country into the war in Iraq.” He suggests the president and his aides were in permanent campaign mode, putting politics above principle, and chronicles how a “state of denial” led to the mishandling of the response to Hurricane Katrina. That’s in the book: “Top White House officials who knew the truth-including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney-allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.” But the denunciation expands from there, and it’s that breadth I never thought that his memoir would offer. Yes, I knew he was angry at Karl Rove and Scooter Libby for using him to spread the falsehood that they had no role in the CIA leak case. Because McClellan was such a team player, the book comes as a bit of a shock to those of us who covered the White House during his tenure. ![]()
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