Friday, May 30, 2008
Goldberg on McClellangate
Goldberg on McClellan:
It’s been rumored that McClellan was hired by the Bush White House to appeal to a specific sub-constituency: pasty middle-aged men with a thumbless grasp of the English language. The veracity of this rumor has long been undermined by the assumption that Bush had locked down this constituency all on his own.
And this:
I have not read the book. I will once I finish eating the contents of my sock drawer (which ranks slightly higher on my to-do list). But in interviews, McClellan’s argument boils down to the fact that the White House employed a high-pitched media campaign to persuade the American people and push the press to more favorable coverage.
Apparently this is something new in McClellan’s eyes. Perhaps such visitor-from-Mars cluelessness will prompt him to report in his next tell-all that when you pull a hidden lever behind a white bowl in the Oval Office bathroom, a sudden burst of water appears and then swirls down the bottom. Some of a suspicious bent might guess that such a system was invented for Bush to quickly jettison damning documents.
RTWT
3 Comments:
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Fri May 30, 12:48:00 PM:
One of his other complaints seems to have been, "I was cut out of the loop, they almost never talked to me about the details of the stuff I was talking to the press about. They used me!"
I find it impossible to believe that this guy really, genuinely thought that being 'Press Secretary' really meant 'policy maker' instead of 'hired talking head.' Which makes this little book a disingenuous money grab at best. I'm not alone in that opinion, apparently.
From Bob Dole: ""There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."
Michael Marshall, Dole's spokesman and colleague at the Alston Bird law firm, confirms the message came from the former senator and presidential candidate. "Yes, it is authentic," Marshall wrote in an email.
"In my nearly 36 years of public service I've known of a few like you," Dole writes, recounting his years representing Kansas in the House and Senate. "No doubt you will 'clean up' as the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm. When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years"
Dole assures McClellan that he won't read the book -- "because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job"
"That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively," Dole concludes. "You’re a hot ticket now but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"
He signs the email simply: "BOB DOLE""
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0508/Bob_Dole_unloads_on_McClellan.html
Hahaha!
By randian, at
Fri May 30, 03:06:00 PM:
If he didn't wait until now, how would he cash in? Waiting until an election year is good money management.
By Noumenon, at
Sun Jun 01, 04:52:00 AM:
Perhaps such visitor-from-Mars cluelessness will prompt him to report in his next tell-all that when you pull a hidden lever behind a white bowl in the Oval Office bathroom, a sudden burst of water appears and then swirls down the bottom. Some of a suspicious bent might guess that such a system was invented for Bush to quickly jettison damning documents.
I would totally fall for that! Reminds me of what Gary Farber said about discussing the military with people who never read anything but the New York Times:
It's like trying to discuss physics with someone who just found out about gravity in the morning's paper. OMG, there's a conspiracy to pull us down to earth! They want to kill us if we happen to walk off a cliff!
