Scottie Comes Clean?

Richard Blair, AllSpinZone.com: Over the next 18 or 24 months, there’s going to be a lot of Lady MacBeth-style handwashing going on as the “Bush-insider-tell-all-for-nice-cash-advance” books start hitting the shelves, but no amount of scrubbing and blood remover is going to take remove the stains from the Bush administration. We get a preview today from former press secretary Scott McClellan.

Apparently, Scottie told a (gasp!) lie. Well, perhaps multiple lies, but the one he’s fessing up to today is the whopper he told that went something like this:

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were “not involved” in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes, according
to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.” …

So, Scott McClellan told a lie. Then, the stenographic White House press corps dutifully regurgitated the lie so that it became truth (or whatever passes for “truth” with the Bush administration).

Is Scottie feeling bad about it? Fat chance. He’s passing the buck to superiors who “misled him”, and he’s gonna make a bundle off of his book. Both actions are laughable, and lamentable, in the extreme.

During his tenure as press secretary, McClellan took to the podium on a daily basis to sling the lies, spin, and deceit. And now that Scooter Libby’s been convicted of (and pardoned for) Cheney’s crime, McClellan’s going to come clean with his mea culpa?

Here’s what I think. Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney have been referred to the House Judiciary Committee. Immediately after the Thanksgiving recess, Chairman Conyers should be summoning McClellan before the committee. If Scottie was duped by the Bush / Cheney smoke and mirrors, it’s hard to tell what else was he duped into during his term as BushCo’s “Baghdad Bob”.

We have a right to know, particularly since Scottie’s publisher has chosen to toss this blockbuster into the public domain to sell a few more books.

UPDATE from RawStory.com: Following the publication of an advance excerpt from a new book by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Democratic presidential contender Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) on Tuesday called for a Justice Department investigation into President Bush's role in events surrounding the outing of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame.

"Today's revelations by Mr. McClellan are very disturbing and raise several important questions that need to be answered," Dodd wrote in a statement posted at his campaign's website on Tuesday. "If in fact the President of the United of States knowingly instructed his chief spokesman to mislead the American people, there can be no more fundamental betrayal of the public trust."

Later in the statement, Dodd asked that newly confirmed US Attorney General Michael Mukasey investigate the president's involvement in the matter.

"During his confirmation process, Attorney General Mukasey said he would act independently," the senator added. "Accordingly, today, I call on the Attorney General to live up to his word and launch an immediate investigation to determine the facts of this case, the extent of any cover up and determine what the President knew and when he knew it."

UPDATE: Scottie Goes Dirty Again. Well, ya knew it was too good to be true. A BushCo insider, a “made man”, ratting out the boss? It didn’t take Scott McClellan long to backtrack on the excerpt made public yesterday from his upcoming book. Can you say, “damage control“?

WASHINGTON - Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan does not believe President Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, according to McClellan’s publisher.

Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan’s book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McCLellan, “Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him.”

The excerpt published yesterday seemed pretty straightforward. It makes one wonder who got to Scottie today.

LSB: Maybe it was the invite from Dick Cheney to go hunting!