Scott McClellan’s book What Happened spans a range of events that occurred during the Bush years, including the 9/11 and Katrina catastrophes, the Plame scandal, and the controversial Iraq War. McClellan also provides scathing profiles of the star-studded White House, criticizing Karl Rove, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush, among others.
McClellan joined the Bush team when George W. was governor of Texas and planning on running for presidential office. Following Bush’s ascent to presidency, McClellan worked under Ari Fleischer as the principal deputy press secretary; after Fleischer’s resignation, he became the chief press secretary for the Bush administration. The purpose of What Happened is twofold: to describe the events that happened during his tenure, and to attempt to salvage his reputation and credibility.
PERMANENT CAMPAIGN
Despite his involvement in politics at a young age, McClellan expects his readers to accept his image as a naïve and idealistic young Texan thrust into—and burned by—the high-power Washington political machine. The disillusionment he claims throughout What Happened largely stems from his description of the “permanent campaign” run by the White House and its prevalence in modern politics. He writes:
“Like the Clinton administration, we had an elaborate campaign structure within the White House that drove most of what we did. We were always focused on how to control the agenda, shape the media narrative, and build public support for our policies—the same things Democratic leaders in Washington sought to do. Bush had promised to change the way things were done in Washington. But how could he change the game if his administration continued to play by the very same rules? At the time, I didn’t recognize the contradiction, and neither, I think, did most of my colleagues.”
McClellan spends much of the book bemoaning the political atmosphere of the White House and the “permanent campaign” that dictated their approach to justifying both the war in Iraq and the Plame scandal.
WAR IN IRAQ
McClellan defines the pattern of thinking in the Oval Office about the war in Iraq, asserting that Bush’s viewpoint on the necessity of removing Saddam stemmed from the President’s understanding of the U.S. as a world leader and its subsequent responsibility to promote democracy and freedom by removing repressive regimes. McClellan, apparently also an expert on preparing for war, writes the following:
“And that is the spirit in which the Bush administration approached the campaign for war. The goal was to win the debate, to get Congress and the public to support the decision to confront Saddam. In the pursuit of that goal, embracing a high level of candor and honesty about the potential war—its larger objectives, its likely costs, and its possible risks—came a distant second… Today, the fatal flaws of the administration’s strategy are apparent. Bush’s team confused the political propaganda campaign with the realities of the war-making campaign. We were more focused on creating a sense of gravity and urgency about the threat from Saddam Hussein than governing on the basis of the truths of the situation.”
He suggests the gravity of Saddam and Iraq was exaggerated by the White House elite who were in the habit of distorting reality to support their political agenda. McClellan also criticizes Bush’s handling of the war:
“Bush’s way of managing the problems in Iraq was proving inadequate to the task. He received regular updates and held frequent meetings as he sought to improve the situation through personal persuasion and pressure on Iraqi leaders. But he was insulated from the reality of events on the ground and consequently began falling into the trap of believing his own spin. He failed to spend enough time seeking independent input from a broad range of outside experts, those beyond the White House bubble who had firsthand experience on the ground in Iraq, and—perhaps most important—those with differing points of view, including those who disagreed with his policies.”
PLAME SCANDAL
McClellan’s coverage of the Valerie Plame scandal has garnered the most attention from the media due to the controversial information he presents. McClellan spends a significant amount of time agonizing over his lost reputation and credibility, as well as maintaining the victimization of his character by his superiors. His recollections focus on Libby and Cheney’s involvement in the affair as well as his unease with his orders to publicly clear their names to the press when originally questioned. Also uneasy are his attempts to downplay the actual source of the Plame leak.
He writes the following about the conclusion of the investigation:
“Some have defended Libby and Rove, saying they weren’t the ones who leaked Plame’s identity to Novak. In fact, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the first to do so. But before Novak publicly disclosed Plame’s identity, Libby and Rove did tell other reporters about her—and Rove became Novak’s second confirming source for his article…”
He writes,
“Was an underlying crime committed by anyone in the administration by disclosing Plame’s identity? I don’t know. Armitage was Robert Novak’s initial source concerning Plame’s identity, and prosecutors seemed to believe that it was unintended on Armitage’s part. But it’s false to assert that he was the only one who disclosed Plame’s identity. We now know that Libby, Rove, and Ari Fleischer also disclosed her identity to reporters before Novak reported it… Rove was being too cute by half when he told CNN and later ABC News back in 2004, ‘I did not know her name. I did not leak her name.’ He did not have to know Plame’s name to leak her identity, as he did to Time magazine White House correspondent Matt Cooper and as he confirmed for Bob Novak. So both Rove and Libby deliberately allowed me to tell the public falsehoods on their behalf—a clear abuse of the White House press secretary’s role… It’s also clear to me that Scooter Libby was guilty of the perjury and obstruction crimes for which he was convicted.”
CONCLUSION
McClellan, also an expert on ethical politics, spends a significant portion of What Happened pontificating on the decrepit political culture of the White House and dramatically moralizing on the degradation of values in politics:
“Unfortunately, the Sun Tzu approach has become the norm in politics, as deception is considered vital today for defeating campaign opponents and for governing. This ‘all’s fair’ attitude now permeates political campaigns and has crossed excessively into governing, especially when the stakes are high. Washington, as a result, has become a breeding ground for deception and a killing field for truth.”
His relentless moralizing, however, does not hamper his shrill criticisms of the elite in the Bush administration, nor is his malevolent tongue tempered by ethical stipulation. At the very least, however, his book What Happened provides an interesting view through the closed doors of the White House.
Rachel Paulk is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
