Shocking Yes. Surprising? Not hardly.

Quote:

Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):

• 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. -  McClellan whacks Bush, White House (Via Politico.com)

Other Interesting tibits:

Among other notable passages:

• Steve Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, said about the erroneous assertion about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, included in the State of the Union address of 2003: “Signing off on these facts is my responsibility. … And in this case, I blew it. I think the only solution is for me to resign.” The offer “was rejected almost out of hand by others present,” McClellan writes.

• Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “‘It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.’”

• “As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided.”

• “History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

• McClellan describes his preparation for briefing reporters during the Plame frenzy: “I could feel the adrenaline flowing as I gave the go-ahead for Josh Deckard, one of my hard-working, underpaid press office staff, … to give the two-minute warning so the networks could prepare to switch to live coverage the moment I stepped into the briefing room.”

• “‘Matrix’ was the code name the Secret Service used for the White House press secretary."

Unlike Jack Moss, who totally trashed Scott and his book, and even goes as far to say that Scott is lying about Bush in his book. I will say this, it is a good chance that Scott is actually telling the truth about Bush in his book. I think Jack Moss thinks that unless someone is praising Bush and saying he is 100 percent right and Iraq was a great idea, and Katrina was not his fault, they’re lying in their books. In other words, if they do not toe the party line, (of B.S.) they are just lying liberals out to discredit Bush. You see how screwed up the mind set is of the Bush apologists and Neo Conservatives?

The truth is, this book is most likely going to be one of the more stunning books, seeing that it is from an insider, someone who was in his inner circle. I personally would like to get a copy of it.

You can pre-order yours at:

Like I said in the title of this post, this is only the tip of the iceberg. I believe that torrent, a flood, if you will, of books will come out, after Bush leaves office, by former staffers, and friends of his, some glowing and some will be glaring. Bush might lose some friends over it too. You cannot stifle truth and it will prevail in the end.  It shall be interesting, to say the least.

Update: The White House responds:

The White House is panning a new book by former presidential spokesman Scott McClellan.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad – this is not the Scott we knew," Dana Perino, one of his successors at the podium, says in a statement to reporters.

"The book, as reported by the press, has been described to the president. I do not expect a comment from him on it – he has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she says.

How prissy.

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