To Reiterate: Know Your Enemy

I'm definitely with Marcy (and others) on this one. Scott McClelland, former WH press secretary, was quite the swine on the job. Despite the heroic efforts of his predecessors in this administration as well as others to re-define that job as controlling information rather than releasing it, McClelland was still able to find new territory to garnish. Remarkably, he found even more ways to turn the job of supposed access point for news from the White House into at best a gatehouse and more often effectively an organ of propaganda that the Kremlin might have admired.

Under the circumstances, it seems to me that naivete of an order so high as to beg for clinical exam is essential for one to now take that very same McC at face value in the conveniently leaked excerpt of his upcoming book. He was immersed in what seems to have been an almost pathologically paranod environment. The Cheney WH is known to place a premium on maintaining plausible deniability, doing business by threats, bullying, and other forms of intimidation rather than documented directives, and absolute abhorrence for recording much of anything. (Hence the beauty of that crossed-out "the Pres" in one of the few bits of evidence we have actually seen of Cheney having any more skill with writing instruments than he has with a shotgun.)

Again, I think Marcy et al are clearly on the right track here. There's no question that there are a multitude of venues in which a properly-empowered subpoena-equipped investigation is in order, including the obviously unfinished business of the Affaire Plame, thwarted by the Libby perjury (not to mention near-criminality by several major media - Time Magazine, just for one). But the distinctive parsing and wordsmithing in the McC excerpt - almost a trademark by now for this most dishonest and secretive administration in our nation's history - ought to be a caution.

Cannonfire is right. People have gotten way too excited over this Scottie McC "revelation." I'd advise you all to look closely at what John Dean had to say about the flap on Olbermann:

Dean: Well, there's very little that's specific in this. I actually thought about calling the publisher today. He's a very able publisher--Peter Osnos, Public Affairs, good journalist. He knows exactly what he's doing. But if he says there's not much more, and that's the indication, I think that's maybe why they put this out as a good tease, to get bookstores interested in the book. [my emphasis]

Scottie McC's publisher has pulled off quite the coup--taken a detail that was, largely, already known, and used it to cause a stir about a book that will not yet be published for another 6 months. Already, Dodd is calling for an investigation, folks are calling for HJC or Waxman to hold a hearing. What the left has done is read one publishing blurb designed to generate this kind of buzz, and played right into the plan. Congratulations. You're all making Scottie McC rich.

What Scottie Said

That said, I guess it would pay to look more closely at what we know, so that everyone can calm down and stop putting dollars into Scottie McC's pockets. Let's look again at what Scottie says (and has said before, and his spokespeople have said since).

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. -from What Happened

Or, to translate:

It was not true that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak of Valerie Wilson's identity.

We've know[n] this detail--that Rove and Libby were involved in leaking Valerie Wilson's identity since Fall 2005 and earlier.

Scottie unknowingly passed on false information.

Scottie has been saying this for years, as well, ever since his tiny credibility took a hit when it became clear his public exonerations were false. In other words, Scottie still maintains that he, at least, had no idea the public exoneration was false.

Rove, Libby, the Vice President, Andy Card, and the President "were involved" in having Scottie "unknowingly pass on false information."

Please note (again, as Cannonfire points out), Scottie says nothing about the President being "knowingly" involved. He doesn't even detail how the President was involved. Given the way this Administration builds in plausible deniability, and given the degree to which the leak of Valerie Wilson's name included a "secret mission" (as Libby lawyer Bill Jeffress called it) involving just Bush, Cheney, and Libby, I'm not sure that Scottie McC would know even if Bush were the mastermind of this leak and cover-up.

And he certainly doesn't say so in this excerpt.

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