Former Dubya press secretary Scott McClellan dominated the overnight reports with the publication of his “withering” tell all book on his time in the Bush administration. It’s bought the two parties a little time to keep working on their vice presidential tickets, but does Hillary still figure in the equation? McCain and Obama are trying to freeze her out of the debate so they can focus on each other. They’re trading barbs on Iraq…
McClellan tells all, too late. I love the smell of burning Republican loyalty in the morning. The blogosphere is all fired up over the publication of a tell-all book by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan. The White House came out hitting while many commentators have taken aim at McLellan for passing the buck.
Arianna Huffington writes “McClellan offers withering portraits of George Bush, Karl Rove, Condi Rice, and Scooter Libby, confirms that we went to war in Iraq under false pretenses, and that we were serially lied to about the outing of Valerie Plame. Interesting stuff, Scott. But about five years too late.”
Think Progress did what US political bloggers do so well – giving a reality check in the form of reminding politicos of their past track record: Flashback: As Press Secretary, McLellan called Bush a “straight shooter” on Iraq.
Iraq. McCain tried to hammer Obama’s inexperience in foreign affairs this week, inviting him to team up for a trip to Iraq. But Obama wouldn’t play, saying he didn’t want to go on a “stunt” tour. The NYT reports he’s considering an Iraq trip of his own.
Hillary deathwatch. ABC reports that McCain and Obama are ignoring Hillary and trying to focus on landing hits on each other. Slate’s Hillary deathwatch widget (download it now!) says: “Clinton is now fighting tooth and nail to see that the DNC’s rules committee seats the delegates from Florida and Michigan at the convention in August. She continues to push for full seating, but that scenario remains extremely unlikely.” Meanwhile, the Washington Post blog The Fix looks at whether the Clinton camp is positioning for a second tilt at the presidency if Obama loses to McCain — “Hillary Clinton and the ‘Told you so’ calculation“.
Vice President. Townhall.com says McCain wants to focus attention on the VP ticket, and runs through an opinionated list of the pros and cons of the leading Republican contenders. On the Democrat side, Politico writes that there are a few potential women in the wings: “But according to interviews with Republicans in their home states, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill differ from Clinton by two important measures: They’ve managed to win elections without developing polarizing personas, and they’ve shied away from emphasizing gender in their campaigns.”
It’s never too late. With release of archived docs we are just now discovering the truth about the US execution of JFK (as we are about ASIO). A profound understanding of human psychology is needed to enable one to understand Scott taking at least this long to enable his will to respond to his moral drives and gather the courage needed to go for it. What we have all acceded to in dancing the Iraq waltz with Bush is as horrible as anything you want to image. The shock of it still hasn’t reached us the perpetrators as it hasn’t reached the victims in the wider sense so we can’t even begin to successfully guess what will be the final score and where. For all those lies the biggest one may be 911 itself. That would shock the sh-t out of us. The most successful police force in the world at tracking and preventing ‘terrorist’ attacks is the German one but we don’t tune into German with our airwaves full of trivia and being language lazy. They are being diplomatically silent on a ton of evidence of CIA and FBI assistance to the 911 feat. The Whitehouse functions as a dysfunctional monarchy when it wants to and then discovers how dysfunctional and pathetic the ‘parliaments’ can become, take advantage, who wouldn’t.