Disgruntled Former White House Staffers Critical of Disgruntled Former White House Staffer
Disgruntled former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has come under fire from other disgruntled former White House staff members for his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, which suggests that President Bush had purposely misled the public.
WASHINGTON — Disgruntled former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has come under fire from other disgruntled former White House staff members for his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, which suggests that President Bush had purposely misled the public.
“How dare he accuse this administration of purposely lying to the American people,” asked an indignant Dan Bartlett, former counselor to the president. “The insinuation that this president has had any purpose, whatsoever, is deplorable.”
“Inaccurate and insulting” is how the book was characterized by former chief of staff Andrew Card. “To tell the American People that president Bush was calculating and deceptive in his push for the Iraq war, gives the false impression the president was able to draw upon some sort of cognitive reasoning skills. Rubbish.”
Former Deputy Chief-of-Staff Karl Rove agrees. “McClellan is just another disgruntled White House employee. To suggest there was a carefully devised campaign of propaganda inaccurately portrays the President as someone capable of carefully devising anything. I am shocked and dismayed at the assertion. It’s a disservice to all the disgruntled employees who’ve gone before.”
A joint statement issued by former White House Press Secretaries Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow and endorsed by former Secretary of state Colin Powell, former counterterrorism adviser Richard A. Clarke, and former GSA head Lurita Doan, read, “As disgruntled former White House employees, we repudiate Scott McClellan’s book and its implications of a cunning, clever and shrewd president, capable of craftiness and ingenuity.”
Current White House press secretary Dana Perino was philosophical about the controversy. “Don’t believe everything you read,” she said. “The book I’m certain to write upon my resignation or dismissal will no doubt be filtered through my own personal disgruntledness and contain numerous personal attacks and inaccuracies.”
