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Jamie Dupree's Washington Insider

Posted: 11:09 a.m. Thursday, May 29, 2008

Strange Rumblings From McClellan 

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By Jamie Dupree

I will say once again, that of all the visible people who have worked in the White House during the George W. Bush Administration, I think Scott McClellan would never have been my choice to write a tell-all insider book.

Clearly, he must have been personally crushed that he was in essence fired as White House Press Secretary and replaced by Tony Snow.

That's about the only reason I can figure that he decided to write this book.  I mean, last week, hardly anyone could have remembered McClellan's name, let alone what his job was a few years ago.

Earth to Scott McClellan:  You were just a cog in the machine.

I like to remind myself that while some of us believe we do our jobs well, we are not the end-all.  All of us can be replaced.

From time to time, I run into Mike McCurry, who was Press Secretary for Bill Clinton, much of it during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

McCurry is a really nice guy.  If you just moved onto his street in my town, you probably would have no idea that he was in front of the TV cameras every day.  You might wonder why he seems familiar, but his name wouldn't leap off your tongue.

McClellan's first round of TV interviews on Thursday struck me as odd, because he at times tried to portray himself as the Purveyor Of Good.  That he came to Washington, D.C. to Change The System, but it was the system that changed Mr. Bush.

""We all had high hopes coming in," McClellan said on NBC's Today Show, adding that he became "increasingly dismayed and disillusioned" during his final year on the job at the White House, especially over the details that emerged in the CIA Leak case.

"The White House would prefer I not speak out openly and honestly about my experiences, but I believe there is a larger purpose," he added.

That goal, McClellan said, was to end the "never-ending" campaign aspect of a Presidency.

Note to Scott: Good luck on that.

"I had all this great hope that we were going to come to Washington and change it," McClellan said.

"Then we got to Washington, and I think we got caught up in playing the Washington game the way it is being played today."

Just as I salute Barack Obama for wanting to change the ways of Washington, I'll give McClellan the tip of the hat that he thinks things need to change.

But maybe he should have thought of that before being the Bulldog in the Press Briefing Room every day, sternly defending President Bush's in his daily briefings.....

MR. McCLELLAN: You asked this question last week, and --

Q I did. And I'm asking again.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- the President has said what our answer is to these questions. We'll be glad to talk about all these issues once the investigation is complete.

Q Do they have a clearance?

MR. McCLELLAN: We'll be glad to talk about all the issues relating to the investigation once it's complete.

Q Why can't you talk about it now?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, that question I addressed a couple weeks ago.



 
 
 

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