BCT Editorial – 6/3/08

This page was last updated on June 3, 2008.

News?; Editorial; Beaver County Times; June 3, 2008.

Who didn’t see this editorial coming? Had Mr. McClellan written a book supporting President Bush, if there had been an editorial at all it likely would have branded Mr. McClellan a lapdog, liar, et cetera.

Before I proceed, let me state I don’t put much stock in “tell all” books regardless of author or target. I’ll ignore Scott McClellan’s book the same way I ignored similar books written by ex-members of the Clinton administration.

Now let’s get into what the Times won’t report.

To start with, consider this excerpt from Mr. McClellan’s original book proposal: “This book is going to take a much different look at our Nation’s 43rd President. While being supportive of the President, I want to give readers a candid look into who George W. Bush is, what he believes, why he believes it so strongly, and what drives him.” What happened between the original book proposal and the final Bush-bashing product?

Next, the book’s publisher, PublicAffairs Press (a member of Perseus Books Group), primarily publishes books by leftist authors and members of the mainstream media. For example, PublicAffairs has published six George Soros books and a brother publisher in PBG (Vanguard) has “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” to its “credit.”

There are other points, but the following gets to the core of my ignoring the book. Mr. McClellan writes about all the alleged misgivings he had working for President Bush, yet in none of the interviews I’ve heard or read did Mr. McClellan claim to have mentioned his misgivings to anyone in the Bush administration. Further, if Mr. McClellan promoted what he believed to be lies, why didn’t he resign? This is why I don’t pay attention to “tell all” books. We’re forced to ask ourselves, “was he/she lying then or is he/she lying now?”