Scott McClellan's book, Oh Migosh, I Just Figured Out That George Bush and His Henchmen and Henchwoman Were Lying About a Whole Lot of Things, makes me so goddam mad I could bite a nail in two. Where has Scotty been all this time? Where is any mention that we've known what he's telling us before he knew it? Where does he get the arrogance and ignorance to presume to preach to us about what we already knew? It's insulting to the intelligence of those who read and write for OEN.
Some will say that they're so glad that Scotty, at last, has joined with us. But, we should save our sympathy for those who were misled and deceived by Scotty and his ilk, and properly direct our ire at those who did the misleading and deceiving, like Scotty. Scotty had access to more information than we did, and we figured out that Bush was lying and he didn't. It was all right there to be seen, and he didn't see it. We did. He has no excuse. I can forgive the misled, but not the misleader, the deceived, but not the deceiver.
Take a look at some of the "revelations" Scotty has for us:
Bush is guilty of a "failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and of rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath."
We knew that, even as Scotty was faithfully passing on Bush lies as gospel truth about Iraq, and everything else, for that matter.
Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."
Bush has never confused candor and honesty with anything, he doesn't know what it is. Scotty distributing Bush's propaganda got him the public support to get and continue his war, didn't it?
"If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House."
If the press corps was deferential, it was to Scotty, who was deferential to Bush in passing on Bush's lies.
"The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise"
The collapse of the administration's rationales for war became apparent while Bush was saying them, months before the invasion, and came as no surprise to us that he was lying about the whole thing. We knew that all along. We knew then that there was no evidence for anything Bush was saying. There wasn't then and never has been any evidence to support Bush's lies.
"I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood. It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively."
That's a hell of an admission, that you were fooled by George Bush. Scotty may have been so easily deceived, but we weren't, and it seems that Scotty was very effective in serving the president by passing on what we knew were Bush's lies. Since we knew, why didn't he? He was right there, watching, while the lies were being invented.
Now, for Scotty's ultimate bit of all-knowing, omniscient hubris:
"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."
Had Scotty just looked around, he would have seen that history (those of us who were paying attention) had already confirmed that the decision to invade Iraq, even before Iraq was invaded, was a strategic blunder. We can see these blunders coming a mile away. And, we knew with absolute certainty that Bush's war was a strategic blunder before he blundered. We won't have to wait decades to know that. We knew it then and we know it now.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
