Scott McClellan is Still a Pantload

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Back when he was the White House Press Secretary, he would stand and sweat at the lectern while issuing what were clearly untruths to the press. He would stammer as an increasingly impatient press would spit ball weak questions. If not for the fact that people were being killed and horrifically wounded as he spoke, it might have even been funny. Scott McClellan was the anti-suave. Tony Snow was the cure. McClellan would commonly make statements that appeared to have been banged together using gutter nails and pallet planks. He would issue daily White House Talking Points with the subtlety and grace of the Berlin wall.



Now he says he lied. Sorry about that. That whole thing he said about the people running the White House having nothing to do with the outing of one of our own CIA operatives? Yeah, that wasn't true. Remember when we fired all those federal prosecutors who were not delivering the election for us? No? Well, we did. Sorry.

Liberal web sites are all standing up yelling, "WE TOLD YOU!", and hailing McClellan as some kind of hero for standing up to the President. Only here's the problem; Scott McClellan is the same weak-armed, coniving, hanger-on he's always been. Nothing has changed within him. He's simply jumping from a falling boat onto one that is rising. Soon - probably very soon - he will get a new job as an Expert for one of the cable news outlets. But probably not Fox.

When someone apologizes, one should not be required to pay $27.95 to read that apology. This is why prisoners are not permitted to write books about their crimes. They're not allowed to profit from their misdeeds.

McClellan was on Meet the Press on June 1, and Tim Russert asked him if he was going to donate any of the profits from his book to people who were killed or maimed as a direct result of the lies he now says he told. The answer was vague at best. It's the same kind of non-answer he regularly gave from the White House Press room. He's the same pile of crap he's always been.

A real apology is made up of these points:

1) An admission that you did something wrong.

2) A request for forgiveness from the party that was wronged.

3) A real effort to make amends for the damage caused by your actions.

4) A demonstrated effort to not do the same thing again.

A fake apology looks like this:

1) A press tour to sell a book wherein you name things everybody else did wrong, which caused you to unintentionally lie.

2) A requirement that the aggrieved pay for the privilege of reading your admission of guilt.

3) Apologizing to Richard Clark for attempting a character assassination, but only because you bumped into him in a lobby while on your book tour.

4) Continuing the same pattern of activity that got you into this mess in the first place.


MR. RUSSERT: Some have suggested because you were part of the propaganda machine that sold the war, that many people have died and been injured because of the war, you should donate some of the profits from this book to the families of the victims of the Iraq War. Will you do that?

MR. McCLELLAN: I intend to. I do intend to. I've already...

MR. RUSSERT: Significant?

MR. McCLELLAN: ...made that decision. I--a portion. I don't, I don't know what I'll do, Tim, but a portion, I do intend to do that. My wife and I look for ways to always support the troops, including sending care packages regularly to them.

-Meet the Press, June1, 2008

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