An associate of Chronic’s mentioned that he knew former White House press secretary Scott McClellan back when he was a whippersnapper working on one of the many campaigns fought by his mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn. He described Scott as “nice enough but not very interesting.”
Now, with the 121-word teaser from his upcoming book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington, McClellan may have become the most interesting person in the news. To quote the preview:
The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It was not true.
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.
The presumption is that this refers to the administration’s frantic attempts to cover up over Plamegate. So now, to take liberties with the questions asked by former Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker during Watergate: What did the press secretary know, when did he know it, and why is he putting it in a book, rather than talking to the media or investigators directly?
This article appears in November 16 • 2007.
