McClellan On Plame

[Terri]

By Robert D. Novak
June 2, 2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In Scott McClellan's purported tell-all memoir of his trials as President George W. Bush's press secretary, he virtually ignores Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's role leaking to me Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee. That fits the partisan Democratic version of the Plame affair, in keeping with the overall tenor of "What Happened."

Although the media response dwelled on McClellan's criticism of Bush's road to war, the CIA leak case is the heart of this book. On July 14, 2003, one day before McClellan took the press secretary's job for which many colleagues felt he was unqualified, my column was published asserting that Plame at the CIA suggested her Democratic partisan husband, retired diplomat Joseph Wilson, for a sensitive intelligence mission. That story made McClellan's three years at the briefing room podium a misery, leading to his dismissal and now his bitter retort.

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[Ohiowoman]

The bland book proposal McClellan's agent unsuccessfully hawked to publishers early in 2007 is not the volume now in bookstores. How and why McClellan changed is a story so far untold.

Why? The most obvious answer is money, but I don't think that was his only motivation. I don't doubt he knew that many people felt he was not up to the demanding job of press secretary. He could also look at his predecessor, Ari Fleischer, and his successors, Tony Snow and Dana Perino, and see they were far superior to him in their handling of the job. This is probably a bid by McClellan to boost perception of his importance. If he can't get the respect he believes he deserves from conservatives, he thinks he'll get it from liberals. They're trotting him out now to present him as a hero with the courage to present the truth about the Bush administration. But when the hype dies down and he's no longer useful to them, he'll be kicked to the curb and they won't return his phone calls.

[welder4]

The people of this country are not so ignorant that they will accept his book,... so much time has passed since the event that we are sort untuned to accept any of it. I wished that a public official could sue but then we open a real can of worms and that is national security . Everyone knows that Armitage is the leaker not Rove . even the main news outlets are kind of looking hard at Scott he is a bought and paid for dupe of Soros. He should go home and hang his head in shame .

[Charie]

Why did we not hear that Richard Armitage (The Weightlifter) had admitted he leaked Plame's name before that investigative farce occurred???????

Everyone knows that Armitage is the leaker not Rove .

I don't believe everyone knows this. I'll bet at least half if not more, Americans believe that VP Cheney or Karl Rove "leaked" Plame's name.

Why did Armitage tell Novak that Plame had gotten Wilson's appointment from the CIA to go to Niger and check out the "yellow cake" uranium supposedly enquired about by the Iraqis? Someone in Washington doesn't tell a reporter news like this unless they want it leaked.

They seem to be Democrats, so why was he sent, rather than someone more favorably disposed towards the president?

Think the CIA is predisposed towards the left?

This whole mess stunk to high heaven and the reek still hovers. I believe, once the situation arose, that the Dems took advantage of it to deliberately try to make it look as though the VP and Rove did this, just to get back at Wilson for his letter to the WSJ.

Why sure, and the president started the war with Iraq because Hussein tried to have his daddy assassinated.

These people are all nuts and/or coopted!

[Jack Reacher]

He should go home and hang his head in shame .

Personally, I would prefer a noose.


Jack R.

[elmerck1]

There is nothing worse than a dirty stinking rat!

[Jamble]

Here is what Bob Dole had to say about the McClellan kerfuffle:

There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don't have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," the five-term Kansas senator wrote to McClellan. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."

He continues: "When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years."

I wish there were more Republicans like Bob Dole who say what they mean and don't pussyfoot around the issue using wussy words.

[mrsmal]

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you...what a dog!

He most assuredly wasn't qualified for the job, he knew it, as did everyone else. The Plame thing is over, she was outed (even tho she wasn't a spy). I read somewhere that she took five years off to have and raise her twins. When she went back to work it was strictly as a desk jockey pencil pusher. What was there to out that her husband hadn't done before Armitage?

Too much ado about nothing and now this diva has made it all resurface.

I hope George Soros is making money off this book.

[Love my Texas]

What a 'worm'....

This is his only way to fame, but with SHAME! A turncoat little weasel liberal.

[FlaJim]

Mrs. Wilson was originally 'outed' by her idiot husband who listed her occupation as a way to polishing his credentials to be included in Who's Who. The whole business was a non-issue from the beginning.

What we have in McClellan is a young guy who was in way over his head and forced out when that became embarrassingly clear. He hasn't had any sort of decent job since and this book of his is one last chance to put some money in the bank and perhaps get one of the lefty media outlets to employ him as a talking head on one of their predictable and dull panel shows.