Scott McClellan - Memoir and Criticism of Bush Administration

Memoir and Criticism of Bush Administration

McClellan criticized the Bush Administration in his 2008 memoir, What Happened. In the book, he accused Bush of "self-deception" and of maintaining a "permanent campaign approach" to governing rather than making the best choices. McClellan stopped short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that the administration was not "employing out-and-out deception" to make the case for war in 2002, though he did assert the administration relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" to sell the Iraq war. His book was also critical of the press corps for being too accepting of the administration's perspective on the war and of Condoleezza Rice for being "too accommodating" and overly careful about protecting her own reputation.

In a Washington Post article on June 1, 2008, McClellan said of Bush: "I still like and admire George W. Bush. I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people."

Speaking frequently on the TV circuit, McClellan told Keith Olbermann in an interview on June 9, 2008, regarding the Iraq War planning: "I don't think there was a conspiracy theory there, some conspiracy to deliberately mislead. I don't want to imply a sinister intent. There might have been some individuals that knew more than others and tried to push things forward in a certain way, and that's something I can't speak to. I don't think that you had a bunch of people sitting around a room, planning and plotting in a sinister way. That's the point I make in the book. At the same time, whether or not it was sinister or not, it was very troubling that we went to war on this basis."

As a result of his assertions in his book, McClellan was invited to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. During the actual testimony McClellan said: "I do not think the president had any knowledge" ; "In terms of the vice president, I do not know."