Nov 20 2007
Another scumbag jumps ship
Former Aide Blames Bush for Leak Deceit
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.
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.”
Bush’s chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.
The excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan’s job to field - and often duck - those types of questions…
McClellan’s book, “What Happened
,” isn’t due out until April, and the excerpt released Monday was merely a teaser.
Cue the right wing smear machine… New target: Scott McClellan.
Update: Recall the smear machine, he’s taking it all back: “Publisher: McClellan doesn’t believe Bush lied.”
Osnos says the quotes which appeared on the Public Affairs Books website were part of the roll out of the book catalogues for the spring printings. And he says McClellan had not finished the manuscript for the memoir yet and was working under deadline to have the book completed for the April publishing.
One Response to “Another scumbag jumps ship”
Somebody actually blamed the monkey for something? That’s a bit of a switch.