McClellan's book consumes the Beltway

I never got around to posting yesterday about Scott McClellan's book. I'm sure you've heard all about it already, but here are some of the highlights:

President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception” to justify his political ends, Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, writes in a critical new memoir about his years in the West Wing.

In addition, Mr. McClellan writes, the decision to invade Iraq was a “serious strategic blunder,” and yet, in his view, it was not the biggest mistake the Bush White House made. That, he says, was “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”

Mr. McClellan’s book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” is the first negative account by a member of the tight circle of Texans around Mr. Bush. Mr. McClellan, 40, went to work for Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas and was the White House press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006.

More:

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence. ...

The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as “authentic” and “sincere,” is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.

McClellan was one of the president’s earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait.

Instead, McClellan’s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House “spent most of the first week in a state of denial" ...

“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term,” he writes. “And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.” ...

“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.” ...

McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.” ...

Among other notable passages: ...

• Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “‘It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.’”

• “As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided.”

• “History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

Needless to say, reaction to the book has been fast, furious, and predictably partisan. For instance, Nancy Pelosi "totally agrees" with McClellan's charges, and Robert Wexler, a top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wants McClellan to testify about his accusations. Karl Rove, on the other hand, says McClellan's book is "a little irresponsible" and that he "sounds like a left-wing blogger." Barack Obama says McClellan "confirmed what a lot of us have thought for some time." But the current White House press secretary, Dana Perino, accuses McClellan of distorting the truth to sell books and says, "Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew." And Dan Bartlett, a former top Bush aide, is distinctly displeased:

Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegations that the media was soft on the White House are "total crap," adding that advisers of President Bush are "bewildered and puzzled" by the allegations in McClellan's new book.

"It's almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience," Bartlett said of McClellan. "We're hearing from a completely different person we didn't have any insight into."

Bartlett added that intimates of the President feel McClellan has violated his trust. "Part of the role of being a trusted adviser is to honor that trust," said Bartlett. "It's not your place now to go out" and criticize the President like this. ...

Bartlett said the bewilderment stems from "Scott's decision to publicly air these deep misgivings he's never shared privately or publicly" with fellow Bush insiders. "To do it now, through a book, is a mistake," he added.

Bartlett asserted that McClellan did not play a major role in key events, noting that the former aide was serving as deputy press secretary for domestic issues during the run-up to the war in Iraq, raising questions about how McClellan could claim the President used "propaganda" to sell the war.

"I don't think he was in a position to know this," Bartlett said flatly. He said it's "troubling" that McClellan is now "gives credibility to every left-wing attack" on anecdotes that are "either thinly-sourced or not witnessed by him" in the White House.

Blogospheric reactions are split with similar predictability. Perhaps one of the more sage points comes from Ed Morrissey:

Expect all sides to redefine McClellan in order to either boost or reduce his credibility. To the Right, McClellan will have been the worst press secretary of modern times, and to the Left a man of extraordinary ability chased out of his job by Bush’s minions. The truth will be somewhere in the middle.

So... what do y'all think?

Comments

[Marty West]

Ooops...I meant to link to Arianna Huffington's post. I thought it was great.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/scotty-come-lately_b_103983.html

[jlr]

Regardless of whether the man has something to gain (as was touted yesterday on Fox News) or if it was actually written by "a left-wing blogger" as Karl Rove charges, what I have heard of McClellan's book shows what we have really known all along: that Bush is a lies with the best of them.

One thing that strikes me is that neither Bush nor any ranking official (past or present) has actually denied any of McClellan's charges. Rather, they seem to be taking the time to try to discredit the author himself (he was never actually a part of the decision-making process, etc.). All anyone seems to be focusing on is how McClellan betrayed Bush's trust. If anyone were to actually say that McClellan was wrong about what he wrote, I'd be very interested to hear it. The simple fact is that the Right is pissed because one of their own betrayed some sort of "sacred trust" to never violate the president.

The White House needs to make a comment about the book, but I have a feeling that we won't get any official word from Bush or his cronies until after someone else lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

[Brendan]

Josh, if you watch the Karl Rove clip I linked, he does deny several of the Plame-related allegations.

Also, Dana Perino is the White House spokesperson, so the White House has "ma[d]e a comment about the book." Though, admittedly without having read that comment in its entirety, I think it fell more into the "betrayal" category than the "denial" category.

[Youngblai]

Why does it seem like our current President chooses his advisors poorly? It just seems like there's an arc of incompetence followed by the advisor in question turning around and sinking a dagger into the Administration's back.

Now, I'd be inclined to believe the Administration's side of events if we hadn't seen this movie before. However, yeah, I'm not seeing enough vehement, straight up denial from the White House on this one. Maybe they feel it's beneath them to respond to a former minion, but I think if my approval rating was in the 20s I'd be bringing the metaphorical baseball bat to every single one of these people writing books.

"The President would just like to say that we don't know _why_ Mr. McClellan's grasp of reality is so tenuous, but it's obvious the man's been taking lessons from James Frey."

[Angrier and Angrier]

I'm not going to redefine McClellan. He was a horrible press secretary, mostly because he was incredibly uncomfortable on the podium and it showed. That doesn't negate the fact that he was an insider who saw what was going on and is now telling the truth about it.

[yea]

i think most of this stuff was well known to anyone who has been paying attention the past few years.

angrier is right that mccellan was a horrible press secretary. this guy is cashing in on telling everyone stuff that we already know.

one thing we should take from this mess is how important it is that a president appoint competant people to hold important positions in our government.

[The Mouse]

A few initial reactions:

1.) Other than some Rove/Libby shenanigans, I don't know what is technically new in this book (newsworthiness of a "Bush loyalist" saying these things aside).

2.) If the left wants to embrace the "truth-teller" version of Scott McClellan, then they have to give up the "it was about the oil" mantra, since the book says "yes, they lied, but it was because they wanted to democratize by force."

3.) It's hard to get away from the impression of Scott McClellan as a mediocrity and a rat. At least Mark Felt was a rat in service of what he saw as a just cause, so he DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT AT THE TIME. It's amazing the moral growth Scott went through after he resigned from the only place he could actually raise questions and effect policy or message, especially when you consider his defense of the president on Bill Maher's show just last year. Just another beneficiary of Bush cronyism. Just a rat.

[jlr]

Brendan, whenever Rove denies something in that interview, it seems that it's in the context of a lawsuit or lawyers telling him not to do something. It certainly isn't an ironclad denial, when all he may be doing is covering his own rear.

Why does it seem like our current President chooses his advisors poorly? It just seems like there's an arc of incompetence followed by the advisor in question turning around and sinking a dagger into the Administration's back.
Youngblai, did it occur to you that the "arc of incompetence" stretches back to Dubbya himself?

[Brendan]

Josh, did you watch the interview in question? Rove did reference his lawyers at one point, yes, but he also very specifically denied that the "secret meeting" in question had anything to do with Plame. He also directly contradicted McClellan's claim that Rove and Libby rarely met in private.

I have no idea whether he's telling the truth, and I'm certainly not trying to defend Rove in general terms. But on the specific question of whether he denied it: he definitely did.

[Joe Mama]

I'm sure there are nuggets of truth in some of McClellan's claims, but I view the excerpts I've read with suspicion for a few reasons.

First, WH press secretaries are not always privy to everything that does on -- read about what Pierre Salinger was told by Kennedy's ExCom during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was left in the dark about many things as events unfolded. In Salinger's case, my impression is that he wanted to know more, but wasn't told everything.

Sometimes, however (and IMO opinion more often than not), press secretaries don't want to know everything because then they wouldn't have the "plausible deniability" that enables them to handle the press effectively. Stated differently, my guess is they ask just enough questions of the decision makers to answer the press corps' questions, but no more. At least that's how I would imagine doing the job. This in turn diminishes a press secretary's credibility when they give their "inside account" of "what happened" long after the fact. They might not necessarily know everything that actually happened.

Moreover, it's not at all unlikely that a press secretary who was involuntarily left in the dark would harbor ill-will as a result, particularly if the statements (s)he made to the press turned out to be wrong. This might further shade their "tell all" account of events.

Finally, what strikes me most about McClellan's account as opposed to other books written by the Bush administration is that his book seems to stand in stark contrast to his attitudes at the time. For example, Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neil made their feelings known at the time when they disagreed with the WH position on things, so what was written in their books wasn't really any kind of about-face. Not so with McClellan. Perhaps that's a function of McClellan's job as press secretary -- it's probably harder for the public face of the WH to let it be known that he disagrees with WH policy or practice. Then again, he always could have quit. If what the WH was doing was as bad as McClellan now seems to be claiming it was, then it seems to me he was duty-bound to do something at the time, such as go on record, or quit.

It's also worth pointing out that McClellan's account is the distinct minority among former press secretaries for this administration. Just sayin' . . .

[Angrier and Angrier]

I think Joseph Goebbels said it best...

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

...Everything that has happened during Bush's Administration is accurately described in this statement.

[Aaron]

McClellan made such a dramatic contrast with Evil Genius Ari Fleischer, that I always thought (sorta half-seriously) that he was chosen for the job as a kind of insulation against the accusation that Bush and Co. regularly mislead the press. As in, "If we really wanted to spread disinformation, why would we pick a guy that's so BAD at it?"

Anyway, I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict this won't be the best or the last tell-all by a former administration official. I'll pass on this one.

[Joe Mama]

Good stuff, Aaron. Your insights are a welcome change from the usual lefty nonsense in here, such as the Bush administration "using all the powers of the State to repress dissent" a la Joseph Goebbels. A dumber and more demonstrably false statement has rarely been uttered, and the fact that it was made on a thread about a book such as McClellan's is downright hilarious.

[Aaron]

Ezra is unsympathetic.

"There are no revelations in Scott McClellan's new book. No fresh information, no new insights. Just the tinny bleatings of a man who abetted a lying, disastrous presidency because it seemed like a good gig, but doesn't want his name maligned by the historians."

[jlr]

He also directly contradicted McClellan's claim that Rove and Libby rarely met in private.

Touche.

But he still referred to his lawyers by mentioning "an ongoing lawsuit" relating to the Plame affair. There's more there than he's admitting to, and I don't think that his admission that McClellan wasn't present at the so-called "secret meeting" so he can't know what it was actually about is an actual denial.

And yes, I watched the interview. Like always with Rove, I felt like I needed a shower afterwards.

[David K.]

Remember folks, in Joe Mama's world there are only two options, either you are completely evil or you are completely good. This is important, because when one makes assertions about our government behaving in negative ways or moving in directions we don't like, his response will always involve how its clear we aren't as bad as "insert group here" so we can't possibly actually be bad.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama is keeping up his reputation as a "useful idiot."

[Joe Mama]

Enter David and his nonsensical ramblings that are irrelevant to any topic under discussion.

[Joe Mama]

A&A is definitely one of those people who you want thinking that you're an idiot.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

As for your argument that the Goebbels statement is demonstrably false in the case of the Bush Administration...

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Iraq was tied to 9/11
Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were allies
WMD in Iraq

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie."

Once the costs (in money and lives) of the war became apparent, and once it was proven that Saddam did not have WMD and was not linked to Al Qaeda, support for the war tumbled.

"It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Valerie Plame
Paul O'Neill
Richard Clarke
Scott McClellan
Etc,
Etc,
Etc,

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

I think you fall into the category of the Soviets' "useful idiots." You are actively supporting people who are working against your own well-being.

[Joe Mama]

Leaving aside the obvious questions of whether Bush ever said Iraq was involved in 9/11, the connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and whether the absence of WMDs was a mistake that 99% of absolutely everyone made or the result of intional lying, simply reciting the names of Valerie Plame, Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke and Scott McClellan not only does not support the argument that the Bush administration used all the powers of the State to repress dissent, but actually supports the opposite. Each of those people have had books published (at least Plame's husband has) about the "lies" of the Bush administration. Exactly how have their voices of dissent been respressed?

I think you fall into the category of the Soviets' "useful idiots." You are actively supporting people who are working against your own well-being.

How ironic.

[copndor]

I'm not a big fan of this administration, but I just watched McClellan's interview on Today, and I'd have to agree with Rove that he "sounds like a left-wing blogger." The reason why he sounds like a left-wing blogger, though, is not just because of the ideological content of his book, but because it sounds like every claim he made was from the armchair. There's nothing that I heard in that interview that actually uses McClellan's priviledged position as the White House Secretary to give us some inside insight into the workings of the White House. It's all just armchair reflection that could have been written by someone who never even set foot in the White House.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Hmmm. Blowing the cover of a CIA agent to shut up her husband doesn't amount to "using the powers of the State to repress dissent," eh? And I guess Cheney wasn't a member of the Bush Administration when he went on Meet the Press to say that Iraqi agents met with Mohamed Atta in Prague prior to 9/11. As for the case for WMD in Iraq, Bush chose to believe discredited sources like "Curveball," who German intelligence warned was a nutcase, over the head of the U.S. weapons inspectors who had been in Iraq and who said Iraq did not have a WMD capability.

Joe Mama, you can continue to be a "dead ender in the final throes" of denial. Most people now know the truth. You can be like those old Russians who still carry around photos of Lenin. You were wrong. You don't have to admit it. It is reality. We all know you were wrong. At some point my disdain for your point of view will turn to pity. Poor Joe Mama. Poor, poor Joe Mama.

[Joe Mama]

Joseph Wilson and his wife have been more discredited than you, A&A, and even the 9/11 Commission Report describes the connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam's regime. And you conveniently left out all of these folks who believed exactly the same thing Bush did (many of them doing so before Bush did).

Funny that you bring up the USSR and photographs, because you are exactly like the Soviet revisionists who went around erasing the faces of the opposition from photos who they found to be inconvenient. Tedious things, facts. It's much harder to erase them nowadays. But you just keep saying I'm wrong, and maybe if you repeat it enough it will become true. You know all about that.

[Youngblai]

I would love to see what some of the folks back in 1941 would have done with the Pearl Harbor attack.

Folks, sometimes intel gets it wrong. Contrary to what the movies tell you, conspiracy theorists regularly trumpet, and what the CIA would have you believe, our spy agencies regularly sh*t the bed.

Now, there are various reasons for that, and your mileage may vary on each, but is it at all possible for either side to see past the noise and accept a middle ground? You know, something like this:

1.) _Everyone_ believed Iraq had WMD. Hell, Saddam's _own generals_ believed that big bad boss man was sitting on a whole lot of weaponized VX when the 3rd ID, USMC, and Brits kicked the door in. Imagine their surprise when the U.S. Army spearhead was reaching the Karbala line, they called for the special weapons, and got, "We're sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected. Please call 1-800-You-R-So-F*cked for assistance."

Don't believe that everyone believed Saddam had WMD? Okay, then if you know a veteran of OIF I, ask them what they were wearing when the crossed the berm. Bet you the answer is some variant of "all our of freakin' hot, claustrophobic, and militarily unuseful chemical protection gear." If you don't know a vet, go back and look at the pics of the embeds. Think they were wearing the four layers of magic charcoal for their health? Um, no.

So, those of you with a leftist bent and a hard on for the President, let's cease with the "Bush lied" meme as it's really getting annoying. You want to fix the country? You want people to start listening to you? Then stop stomping your foot and acting like a child who believes if he / she screams "Easter Bunny" often enough it will make it true.

Now, as for you, "There was a terrorist connection! Our intel said so!" Um, yeah, I'm convinced that part of being President is that you have to possess a very, very good bullsh*t detector. I'm starting to believe that ol' 43's was surgically removed at birth. Why? Because when his advisors come to him and said, "Okay, they guy whose intelligence agency can't find its ass with both hands, a radar set, and detailed instructions is going to introduce a nuclear weapon into the United States", the response should have been an immediate execution of the Secret Service punt drill followed by a headline that read, PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORS SUFFER CONCUSSIONS.

Now, this didn't happen, which leads three possible solutions:

1.) The Great Powerful Bush and his evil mage, Karl the Malevolent, wanted to plunder the peaceful people of Iraq, kill as many of them as possible, and rob them of their plentiful, abundant oil;

2.) A sitting President had a chance to remove a rather unpleasant dictator who, incidentally, had tried to kill said President's father and wife or;

3.) Aforementioned President saw a clear and present danger and, having already been to one site where the stench of the dead was still powerful in his nostrils, trusted that his advisors knew what they were talking about.

Now, I'm going for some combination of 2 and 3, but in reality it doesn't matter. Know why? Because regardless of _why_ our Presideent decided it was a good time to open a second front, the basic idea was dumb as hell. Unfortunately, when you decide to do dumb sh*t as President, you're responsible when said "dumb sh*t" blows up in the Nation's face (call it Johnson's Law).

When said dumb sh*t includes, you know, keeping the director of the CIA on after he's missed the worst terrorist attack in history, you end up with more idiotic shenanigans. Exhibit A--the Plame case. And that, my friends, is why you've got ol' Scott the Deer-eyed writing a tell all book--because the President sent him out there after telling him specifically "no one in the Administration had anything to do with it." Now, plausible deniability, whatever, the fact is the President either lied to him or, once again, did not have positive control of the folks working for him. (No, the Vice President does not work for him--but the VP's Chief of Staff does.) The fact that Dick Cheney doesn't have the cast of Bugs Bunny as his current staff (because God help me, if my Veep did that sh*t to me behind my back he'd be lucky if I let him have the keys to his sh*tter, much less a say in who his staff was) leads me to believe that, yes folks, the President knew what was going on with Valerie Plame.

Now, does all this make him such a propagandist that people need to be even mentioning Joseph Goebbels? Um, no, and once again some folks need to realize hyperbole is a strong indicator of stupidity. However, does this mean that maybe Congress should have been paying a bit more attention to what those funny guys in the Executive Branch have been doing since, oh, 2003? Um, yeah, and that goes for the current Congress also.

Maybe _that_ lesson, rather than "gotcha" passages is the lesson we the people (allegedly the folks running this ship) should be thinking about come November.

Sorry so long, Brendan, but I get tired of the idiots of both side seeing how can spew the most vitriol. Folks, we're at war, and it wasn't just the man who is heading back to Crawford in January 2009 who led us there. I don't recall many people questioning the intelligence and for the most part none of them were in positions of power or former power (e.g., former President Clinton, Bush '41, etc.). So let's put aside the conspiracy theories, apply Occam's Razor, and start talking about what this means going forward rather than working ourselves into a lather.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

You have time to post on this site all of the time but you have apparently missed my numerous posts where I bash Hillary for her vote to invade Iraq. I've never been an Edwards fan, either. Regarding the 9/11 Commission Report, it states that there was NO OPERATIONAL RELATIONSHIP between Iraq and Al Qaeda. I guess you can't read.

As for Joe Wilson, he was discredited how? Because he was right about the yellowcake? Or because Bush Sr. called him a national hero for standing up to Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War and refusing to turn over foreign nationals he was sheltering at the U.S. Embassy despite being threatened with execution by Saddam?

[Angrier and Angrier]

Youngblai-

That might be the case if it weren't for the fact that a member of his Administration just came out and said the reasons were fabricated to support a pre-determined policy. There is no reasonable doubt left.

[Youngblai]

A&A,

So you're saying that you believe everything Scott McClellan says _now_? If so, when did you come to the conclusion that the man was trustworthy?

Let me be clear--I am not saying that the man is or is not trustworthy. I am merely saying that your proclivity to _thinking_ Mclellan is trustworthy seems to have its genesis in the fact that what he is saying in his book seems to align with your world view.

Now, if this is not so, I stand corrected. However, I will be deeply, profoundly surprised if a year ago you would have believed anything Scott McClellan said based solely on his former role in the Administration.

Once again, people say things to make themselves look good and sell books. Take Richard Clarke's "hair on fire" statement for example. Sorry, but if you're an anti-terror chief and you truly believe that someone is about to launch a major attack on the United States, all 100-150 pounds of Condeleeza Rice should not be stopping you from getting in to talk to the President. _That_ is "hair on fire" as opposed to "covering my incompetent a**."

[Angrier and Angrier]

Youngblai-

McClellan has said two things that are completely different from each other. This means one of the things he has said is a lie and the other is the truth.

If the first thing he said was the truth, that the war was justified, Bush was great, etc, he basically was agreeing with the President of the United States and every rich Republican in the country. That means staying the course he could have reaped huge benefits as a speaker, consultant, etc., to the Bush family and those people who support the Bush family. These are the same people who took Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck from obscurity and made them multi-millionaires.

Now why on Earth would McClellan lie? To sell some books? How much money could he possibly make from one book that would justify his burning every bridge he has ever crossed? Is $500K enough? What about $1 million?

Do you really think $1 million would be enough for a guy to jeopardize his most lucrative prospects for the future and...hell...virtually all of his friendships and working relationships along the way????

I don't think so. That is why most people don't write books like this, regardless of which president they worked for.

[David K.]

Nonsensical ramblings Joe Mama? You prove yet again with your earlier argument that you are willing to defend a claim by saying "we aren't as bad as the worst people so it must not be true".

You have over and over again refuted arguments by myself and others that Bush and his administration have engaged in behaviors that move us towards or are akin to represive, totallitarian and facist regimes. You further argue that anytime such a claim is made myself or others are claiming that George W. Bush is the next Mussolini/Hitler/Stalin.

The two huge gaping problems with your argument are that:

1) Its demonstrably true that Bush and his administration HAVE engaged in behaviors and choices that move us more and more towards the totalitarian direction. There really is no argument about that, they have done it. They've tapped peoples phones, they have tortured people, they are holding people without trying them, etc. All these are true.

It's ridiculous to claim none of these have happened.

You may argue that those things are necessary, I would disagree and so would others, but atleast there you have an argument to make, rather than blindly ignoring reality.

From that I can only conclude that you either are unwilling to believe the objective truth because you are deluded OR you believe that governments only exist in discrete states, such as Totalitarian, Free, Communist, etc. Such a belief may be internally consistent to your world view, but its pretty ridiculous to fail to acknowledge that there is a much more continous gradiation.

2) Related to the above, you claim that anytime we compare the behavior of a previous totalitarian state and Bushs actions to that state, we must be equating him to that leader. Again either you are willfully ignoring the facts or you believe that all totalitarian dictators fit neatly in to one bucket, and since GW Bush doesn't exhibit every behavior he must therefore not be in anyway like them or engaging in similar behavior.

Again such a pigeon-holing world view may be internally consistent, but it flys in the face of observed reality.

Arguing that his choices are necessary or correct is one thing, arguing that they aren't what they are is completely different.

[Joe Mama]

I want to do my part for Youngblai's sake, but it's very difficult when someone pulls three words out of the 9/11 Commission Report, ignores everything else, and then has the lack of self-awareness to say, "I guess you can't read." I'm clearly not the one who can't read.

As for how Joe Wilson was discredited, it has less to do with A&A's strawman bullsh*t, and more to do with the fact that the Senate Intelligence Committee found that Wilson's trip to Niger lent more credibility to the CIA reports about yellowcake on which Bush's infamous "16 words" were based.

McClellan has said two things that are completely different from each other. This means one of the things he has said is a lie and the other is the truth.

Far be it from me not to live up to someone's dopey caricature of me as a Manichean thinker (yes, I'm referring to the David's silly rambling above), but isn't it possible that neither thing McClellan said is true?

Now why on Earth would McClellan lie? To sell some books?

Um, yes.

Do you really think $1 million would be enough for a guy to jeopardize his most lucrative prospects for the future...

What propects would those be? Perhaps I missed something about McClellan's white hot schedule on the lecture circuit, but it's far more likely that he realized his only chance to cash in was to get his book out now while the getting was good (i.e., while Bush is still in office). In 6 months his last "lucrative prospect" would be dead and gone.

[Sandy Underpants]

Scott McClellan
a guitly conscience, yes.
But guilty nonetheless,
just like the rest.

Prepare the gallows.

[Joe Mama]

I hasten to add that I don't necessarily think McClellan is lying in his book. I don't know one way or the other, and frankly I don't care. But to suggest that someone wouldn't lie to sell books as A&A does above borders on the criminally stupid (see, e.g., James Frey).

[Sandy Underpants]

Youngblai, sometimes there isn't a middle ground, especially when there is a lot of lying going on. If one side is lying, meeting in the middle isn't fair to the side that is not lying.

George Bush said outright that he would never wire-tap an American without a warrant, and then the NSA leaked the information that the President had authorized them to wire-tap Americans without warrants for months, including news agencies to find the identities of White House information leakers. There's no middle ground for liars. In court when one side is proven to be lying, the court throws out all of their testimony and considers what is likely to have happened based on evidence independent of the liar(s).

[Youngblai]

Sandy / A&A,

So, do you believe that President Bush is the first Chief Executive to tap American's phones without a warrant? I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I'm just asking if it's this particular President or the practice in general that upsets you.

Likewise, I ask if you include the current Democrat Congress (as well as those who were in office when these abuses were occurring) in your scorn. Or does one have to have a "R" after their name in order to be one of the "other side" from you?

[Joe Mama]

Sandy would have Woodrow Wilson and FDR hanging in the gallows right along side Bush.

[Youngblai]

Understand, I have serious issues with how we've fought this "War on Terror." However, the problem therein is not isolated to either party or the people who support one or the other.

One side states what is being done is necessary to make us all safe. I think Ben Franklin speaks to the just rewards for those who would trade their freedoms for safety well enough, and I will not attempt to improve on his work here. If your only response to someone comparing President Bush to a tyrant is to say, "He's not that bad...", then ask yourself just how far you are removed from the office being inhabited by someone who _is_ that bad.

The other tries to cast the current occupant of the White House as some ogre yet does not demand of its party leadership that something be done. Likewise, they wish folks in the middle to believe that, of course, their party leaders were absolutely virtuous and upstanding in their decisions to vote this nation into a war. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, "authorize military force." Such quaint dissection of words would be amusing if they did not speak to a pathetic moral fiber or have real, lethal consequences.

Saying, "Well I trusted him to be telling me the truth!" is an argument befitting of an overwrought high school freshman who just found out she was the captain of the football team's Prom plaything. It is _not_ acceptable for people who are elected representatives and arguably supposed to be leaders. Bush may have lied, but it was Congress, both parties, that enabled him. If you actually believe that he did so, then I expect that you're not going to nor will you ever pull the lever for anyone who voted in favor of war.

However, all of you seem to be missing the thrust of my earlier post, so I'll lay it out again:

1.) It is entirely possible to say that the President hyped the threat.

2.) Just because he may have hyped the threat, however, does not believe he did not believe the threat was true. This is like saying that Roosevelt was a "liar" for talking about the Japanese wanting to dictate peace terms in the White House in World War II. He knew that this was not possible (do the population math), but it was still useful as a motivation tool, wasn't it?

3.) Regardless of whether or not the threat was hyped, Congress was supine to the President's wishes because no one wanted to appear "weak" on a war vote right before an election year. Rather than casting blame, stones, or whatever your weapon of choice is, perhaps those who think this is a tragedy should work on attempting to illustrate to their friends or neighbors why it is not "weak" to vote against starting a war of choice with another country. Bush leaves in 2009, but whomever replaces him in the White House will have multiple opportunities to f*ck up a similar issue. Make sure your Congress critter's not an enabler next time or, alternatively, make sure that we've thought through the long-term implications of conflict even if the cause is just.

None of these 3 facts require anyone to start calling names. Nor do they preclude meeting in the middle. Because either we better start getting used to meeting in the middle and being able to talk to each other like adults again, or you might want to start reading up on the events between 1860-1865 (i.e., the least time everyone was just too hardheaded to talk). Just a thought.

[Sandy Underpants]

Youngblai, you ignore me and the others who detest the congress of 2000-02 who ceded their powers to the President, but you also ignore the fact that they did so in the case that the United States were attacked by Iraq and Congress was not able to convene to declare war. Of course that didn't happen. Can we talk about the deceit of those who recall this time intentionally incorrectly to again "meet in the middle" and "share the blame" when the truth is-- Bush could have put the 'War Order' up to vote, as he should have, since we were not in fact attacked or even under threat of impending attack, so says George W. Bush ("There was no imminent danger, but rather a gathering one").

[Youngblai]

Sandy,

No, I'm sorry, I don't ignore you, I'm just wondering where in the AUMF you find that particular passage superseding the others. When Congress means something to apply in only a particular instance (i.e., the authorization to attack Iraq only applying in case Iraq struck the United States), they generally put language in a document that _makes that clear_. The AUMF does _not_ say that the United States may only attack if Iraq attacks first. (You may find the whole document here-- http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf--and you're not going to find the phrase you're looking for.)

Instead, what you will find is, as I said, a bunch of idiots writing a resolution that could be authorized to go to war with just about _anyone_ (indeed, upon rereading it again for the first time in six years I am _horrified_ that this has not been amended).

So no, Sandy, I don't _ignore_ the fact that what you say occurred did, for ignoring would imply that your words are factually correct. They are not and the reason the President didn't put things to a "war vote" is he already had the check in hand.

Now, this means that the _every single Congress critter_ who voted for this is responsible.

[Alasdair]

Youngblai - I find I mostly end up defending Bush because the atackers keep talking/typing logorrheically about the crushing tyranny under which we are now forced to live ... it's sorta hard to get exercised/convinced about such verbiage, given that so many of Bush's biggest detractors are not being hustled off the public stage and hauled away to be locked up ... last time I checked, the 4 listed still had their liberty, remaining free to keep insisting how badly theiur civil rights have been infringed upon ...

Then I contrast this with the numbers of speakers who have been physically chased/forced off public (as in speaking to the public) stages to prevent them expressing their opinions - and it ain't Bush and his stormtroopers doing so ... it is those who loudly and proudly oppose Bush who are doing so ...

In my book, the physical forcible suppression of expression of opinion is the classic signature of fascism ... and it's not part of Bush's repertoire, and it *is* a classic part of the repertoire of those who oppose Bush ...

So - D-list outrage acknowledged (and anticipated), I'd rather have Bush as President than those who oppose him ... the reality is that he promotes less fascism than his opponents ... he practices less fascism than his opponents ... I respect Brendan as a blogger (and Patterico) because he (they) practices way less fascism than Democratic Underground or Talking Points Memo ...

To rephrase it simplistically, Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than Dick Cheney's guns ... we keep hearing about Cheney's guns, and we keep getting Kennedy's car glossed over ... I feel safer going hunting with Cheney than driving with Kennedy ...

That's reality ...

[David K.]

Alasdair, I'd like to tahnk you for your yet again ridiculous comments that prove rather than disprove the arguments you are trying to counter:

I find I mostly end up defending Bush because the atackers keep talking/typing logorrheically about the crushing tyranny under which we are now forced to live

Actually most of those of us who criticize Bush do so not because we see us living under a crushing tyranny now, but because we are moving in that direction under Bush. You would have us wait to criticize him until we are actually unable to do so. What an utterly stupid position to take. The way to PREVENT a tyranny is to speak up now, rather than later.

You and others like you claim that the steps Bush is taking, even the ones he and those who agree with him acknowledge are in fact infringing on our freedoms are absolutely necessary and that there is no alternative. Those like me who question these decisions are not on the hook to prove him wrong, no in a free society the burden of proof should be on those who are attempting to take them away. If you want to get me to agree that yes, you're right Bush SHOULD have done what he did, then you and those like you need to make the case that the other options just weren't good enough. And neither you nor Bush has done so. All you have done is say "But we have to do it or else the terrorists will get us!!!" Bullshit. Thats a bullshit excuse and a bullshit reason.

And sorry but bringing up a few sites like DU and TPM is also bullshit. I could pick out Right Wing blogs who are extreme and if I tried to characterize them as the majority opinion I'd be shouted down (and rightly so) by others (well they fight YOUR apparent world view, but still).

You trust Bush more, fine. But he promotes less facism than Obama would? Based on what evidence? A few bloggers ideas? Again, bullshit. Bush has a demonstrated record of making choices that move us in a direction away from freedom and towards totalitarianism. It might not be alot, heck it might even be argued that its necessary. But unless you can back up your accusation of Bush's opponents such as Obama (or Gore) of leading us towards MORE facism with concrete facts, then you are full of, i'll say it again, bullshit.

Fact: The Bush administration has planted reporters in the press core to ask favoritive questions during press conferences
Fact: The Bush administration has engaged in torture of detainees, violating the geneva convention
Fact: The Bush administration has increased domestic spying operations
Fact: The Bush administration is holding prisoners without giving themselves a chance to defend themselves through the legal process, and has in fact held people that were proven NOT to be involved with terrorism.

Whats hilarious is you yourself admit he promotes facism, your only defense (as is common of the extreme right and Bush loyalists) is to try and blame someone else for being worse! With no facts of course, just inuendo and repeating the same things over and over hoping people will believe them.

[David K.]

Youngblai,

I think there are far more people who are dissapointed in Congress who are also critics of Bush, but we still see Bush and his administration as those most responsible for the state of this nation and the whole "war on terror".

[Sandy Underpants]

Youngblai, we already agree that the 296 members of Congress who actively gave away their war declaration authority are culpabale (the 81 democrats who voted that way, included).

They aren't responsible for everything that has happened since their October 2002 vote. I believe they were in derelictin of duty, but they weren't cooking intelligence reports like the speech Colin Powell delivered to the United Nations featuring discredited intelligence and intelligence reports from 1991 as if they were current.

Hell, Hans Blix said in January, February and March of 2003 not to go to war with Iraq because there was no evidence that Iraq had WMD. Congress couldn't stop Bush at this point, but the notion that a mountain of evidence pointed to Iraq having WMD is a lie. In fact the UN inspectors IN Iraq said there were no Nuclear materials and no significant chemical or bio weaopons, and the inspectors from years prior had records of destroying 95% of Iraq's banned weapons.

Furthermore, an incredible amount of the people involved in the fraudulent build-up to the war like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Dick Cheney stood to benefit financially from the war whether it was justified or not. Dick Cheney left his position as CEO of Haliburton for the Vice Presidency and when he's done with this job, his 'former' company will have benefited to the tune of more than 250 billion tax payers dollars for 'services rendered' in Iraq. How can so few hard-line republicans be sick from that?

[Alasdair]

Fortunately, the general polulace is way smarter than the D-list folk - which is why Bush's positive approval ratings are some 50% or more higher than the positive approval ratings of the Democratic-controlled Congress ... Bush's positive approval ratings are still above 30% ... Congress's positive approval ratings have dipped significantly below 20% ...

[Alasdair]

"favoritive" ???

"Fact: The Bush administration has planted reporters in the press core to ask favoritive questions during press conferences" - oh, the definitive start of the slippery slope into rampant fascism ! WTF is even bvaguely proto-fascist about one of Hillary's favoured techniques ?

"Fact: The Bush administration has engaged in torture of detainees, violating the geneva convention" - apart from the rather obvious fact that they are the "Geneva Conventions", as far as I can tell, since none of the "tortured" detainees were wearing a recognised uniform of a state when they were captured during war-related activities, all bets are off for them, up to and including shooting them out of hand ... or are you pissed off at Bush because he didn't shoot 'em immediately ?

"domestic spying" isn't a fascist tactic, it's a commonplace activity in politics, sports, diplomacy, industry, and so on ... what's next ? Are you going to accuse Bush-the-facist (deferring to the accuracy of your heterography) of breathing ? After all those damned fascists breathed, too, didn't they ?

Bush has indeed been so eeeevil as to hold folk that are eligible to be released - of course, those same folk didn't want to be sent back to their country of origin (since they fear being killed by the authorities there) and only the Albanians are/were willing to take 'em in ... but that's all the EEEEVIL Booosh's fault, David, isn't it ?

[Sandy Underpants]

Alice, since you're so quick do defend GWB negatives, please give me a list of the positive things GWB has done over the last 7 years that have benefited Americans. I'm genuinely interested.

No you're not.

[Sandy Underpants]

Actually I am. I've posted this question several times in other threads and there is never a response. 4 hours have gone by and no response. None of the usual Republican posters ever have a nice thing to say about Bush, all they seem capable of doing is defending him.

It's been 7 years, this ought to be easy.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

I am surprised that a lawyer in DC can be so ignorant of how DC works. McClellan could easily follow the path of other press secretaries like Ari Fleisher, Michael Deaver and Jody Powell and be a partner with a major public relations firm making $500K a year without breaking a sweat. He could be a fellow with Heritage or AEI. He could be an associate professor at Georgetown or an at-large editor at Roll Call or The Hill. He could do ALL of those things at one time and be pulling in $1 million a year.

Instead, you are contending that he is throwing everything away on the bet...THE BET...that his book might net him a one-time windfall of $1 million. Is he supposed to live the rest of his life on $1 million??

[Joe Mama]

I clearly know a helluva lot more than you do about how DC works, A&A. First, McClellan is no Ari Fleischer or Michael Deaver. Not all press secretaries are created equal (and Deaver wasn't even press secretary, he was Reagan's deputy COS). Unlike either of them, McClellan was forced out of his job. And if McClellan still desires to work at a major PR firm in DC, he now has plenty of new friends willing to hire him that share his "evolved" views.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

"I clearly know a helluva lot more than you do about how DC works"

You have no idea.

[Sandy Underpants]

McClellan worked with Gov. Bush and then the President of the United States, in the White House for nearly 7 years. What would he gain by destroying all the relationships that he built, that go as deep as the President of the United States?

How many more current white house staffers will come out for confession? Hopefully they canabalize each other until there isn't another one of them left.

[Joe Mama]

A&A cracks me up. Let me know when you bump into McClellan on the unemployment line, Mr. DC Insider.

[Angrier and Angrier]

I wouldn't call myself "Mr. DC insider," but I'm sure if you knew where I live and what I do you would acknowledge that I know more about this kind of thing than you do.

[Joe Mama]

Ooohhh, I'm so intrigued. If you don't live in SE and wash dishes for a living I'd be very surprised.

But I guess you know more about DC than Bob Dole, who seems to agree with me McClellan isn't exactly martyring his future by writing this book:

"No doubt you will 'clean up' as the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm. 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 . . . .

[Angrier and Angrier]

You forgot the part of the letter where Dole acknowledges some of what McClellan said is true.

[Angrier and Angrier]

As for the "intrigued," I don't mean to intrigue you. I mean to point out you know very little about what I do, so jumping to a conclusion based on no facts - which is something you do on a regular basis - just makes you look like the idiot that you are.

One of these days you should post your real name here so I don't make the mistake of retaining you for counsel. You don't seem very intelligent for a lawyer.

[David K.]

Alasdair,

Thanks again for proving what I was saying. You can't back up your point on its merits so you try and mock what I said without offering much of a counter argument.

As for the Geneva convention and lack of uniforms, by your reading of the situation, the Chinese could kidnap you in the middle of the night, accuse you of being an enemy combatant and hold you indefinitely without the chance to defend yourself and you'd consider that ok. If you can't see that as totalitarian/fascistic behavior, there really is no hope for you.

And yes, domestic spying IS totalitarian and fascistic. You may argue that it is necessary, but by definition it fits that spectrum. Again you seem incapable of grasping the concept of a contious spectrum, and only seem to be able to see in black and white, either we are a horrible totallitarian dictatorship or we are the epitomy of a free and democratic nation. Reality, however, is that we are somewhere in between, and Bush is moving us further away from the free and democratic nation and towards the totallitarian dictatorship. We aren't there yet, and i'm not arguing that we are, and so are most of his critics if you'd bother to listen instead of sticking your fingers in your ears while oggling a picture of your dream girl, Ann Coulter.

I'm glad you aren't a doctor, because your style of treatment would seem to invovle not doing anything until the disease fully presents all symptoms. I can see it now "oh sure he has SOME of the symptoms of pneumonia, but he doesn't have ALL the symptoms and they aren't as bad as this guy over here who does have pneumonia, so he must not have pneumonia at all. Come back when he has all the symptoms and we'll talk, right now you are just being a hypochondriac!"

[Joe Mama]

You forgot the part of the letter where Dole acknowledges some of what McClellan said is true.

If I claimed that everything McClellan said in his book was untrue, then that might matter. Of course, not only did I not say that, but I specifically said above that I was "sure there are nuggets of truth in some of McClellan's claims." So the point you raised is completely irrelevant to the question at hand, which is whether McClellan was in general doing himself a favor or not by writing this book. Part of being a lawyer is cutting through the bullshit when someone else is trying to confuse the issue, which you have a tendency to do, either deliberately or because you have trouble maintaining a constant train of thought.

And I'm not surprised that you would be in need of legal counsel, A&A, but you couldn't afford me and I don't work pro bono, so there's no danger of me representing you.

[copndor]

"Part of being a lawyer is cutting through the bullshit when someone else is trying to confuse the issue"

Who is this "someone else" who makes the bullshit in the first place? Isn't it another lawyer, and if so, doesn't that mean another part of being a lawyer is originating the bullshit to be cut through?

[Joe Mama]

The "someone else" is not necessarily another lawyer.

[Andrew]

I'm not much interested in this debate. I've long thought that Scott McClellan was the worst White House Press Secretary in the modern era, so the fact that he's gone turncoat and is now making claims to sell books simply provides amusement to me. I ought to be outraged at his unwillingness to retain some measure of decorum and wait until Bush is out of office to stab him in the back, but sadly, standards and decorum no longer exist in Washington, DC. That, and I really can't do any better than what Rich Lowry and Jonah Goldberg have said over at NRO.

[Joe Mama]

I agree, Goldberg is especially good:

It’s been rumored that McClellan was hired by the Bush White House to appeal to a specific sub-constituency: pasty middle-aged men with a thumbless grasp of the English language. The veracity of this rumor has long been undermined by the assumption that Bush had locked down this constituency all on his own.

Whatever the justification for McClellan’s tenure, he succeeded in showing that the inability to communicate and the incapacity to deal with the press artfully are not insurmountable obstacles to one’s dream of rising to the position of White House press secretary.

In McClellan’s book, What Happened (oddly missing a question mark), the author purports to explain how the Bush White House launched a “propaganda machine” to push the country into a war of choice.

I have not read the book. I will once I finish eating the contents of my sock drawer (which ranks slightly higher on my to-do list). But in interviews, McClellan’s argument boils down to the fact that the White House employed a high-pitched media campaign to persuade the American people and push the press to more favorable coverage.

Apparently this is something new in McClellan’s eyes. Perhaps such visitor-from-Mars cluelessness will prompt him to report in his next tell-all that when you pull a hidden lever behind a white bowl in the Oval Office bathroom, a sudden burst of water appears and then swirls down the bottom. Some of a suspicious bent might guess that such a system was invented for Bush to quickly jettison damning documents.

***

McClellan’s only legitimate beef seems to be his unjust treatment during the Valerie Plame investigation. But that complaint doesn’t sell books or get the sluices of journalistic saliva raging. Use of the word “propaganda” and charges of dishonesty about the war do, which is why he uses them. But McClellan concedes in interviews that even when he was an important cog in the “propaganda machine,” he never witnessed anything that seemed at the time to be deceitful or untrue.

Rather, he says that his views have “evolved.” This is one debate over evolution where intelligent design seems to have the upper hand. The prime mover of McClellan’s evolving views was almost surely his need to move books.

This all bespeaks a level of sophistication few ever credited McClellan with when he stood at the podium looking like a McDonald’s cashier flummoxed by an order. He’s hawking books by making people think he’s charging the Bush administration with wholesale dishonesty when he’s not even making that case at the retail level. He’s claiming the role of insider with behind-the-scenes insights, but he admits it never occurred to him that there was any dishonesty at work until he left the White House and began ruminating on what he could put in his book.

If only he’d been this good at working the press when it was for someone’s benefit other than his own.

[Angrier and Angrier]

"Part of being a lawyer is cutting through the bullshit when someone else is trying to confuse the issue"

You really said that and then applauded Jonah Goldberg is the same thread? Ha!

You can't cut through bullshit when you are incapable of seeing it.

[Joe Mama]

If I were incapable of seeing and recognizing bullshit, we wouldn't be having these delightful exchanges in which I get to further hone my skills in cutting through bullshit.

[Alasdair]

David

If the Chinese kidnap me in the middle of the night, accuse me of being an enemy combatant and hold me indefinitely without the chance to defend myself, then they have committed a criminal act or three, on another sovereignty's territory against whom no recent war was declared ... with that said, as long as they provide food, housing, and entertainment, it doesn't sound so bad ... (remember, school is out for the summer - the teenagers - actual and still-acting-that-way are home) ...

If, on the other hand, the situation was where the Chinese were in uniform, in US sovereign territory *after* declaring war, and came to get me cuz I'd been launching live activated ordnance at them while wearing civilian clothing, then I would be VERY happy if all they did was put me under Gitmo conditions cuz they could have used Geneva Conventions to justify simply shooting me where they found me, thus tidying up the situation ...

That's the Geneva Conventions in operation, David ... is that what you would prefer seeing happen to those in Gitmo who were picked up under those conditions I described, above ?

To use a phrasing which cannot be slanderous or libelous - David, you are *really* being a David, today !

Oh, before I forget - leaving aside your whatever-it-is preoccupation with Ann Coulter - what the F is "oggling" ?

Your "doctor" straw man was mildly amusing ... it would seem you lack the proverbial clue as to what a Mainframe Systems Programmer does on a regular basis ... differential diagnosis is a major and much-utilised part of our skill-set ... we often manage to avoid "killing our patients" because we do our best not to go off half-cocked ... we verify our hypothesis by attempting to falsify it first ...

So we don't wait until our "patient" shows "ALL the symptoms" ... we do, however, wait until our "patient" has shown *enough* of the symptoms to confirm that our hypothesis is accurate, and *then* we respond ...

If we follow *your* recommendation, when we build a subsystem, we can hand it over to our customer as soon as it will come up ...

[a portion of this comment removed by editor]

Let's see, by Davidan analogy ... "you coughed - here, take this medication for pneumonia" - unfortunately followed, days later, by reading about the funeral of the person who died of anaphylactic shock ...

McClellan is providing entertainment and glee within the echo-chamber, yet seems not to have added anything new or convincing ... time will tell ...

[Alasdair]

Sandy Underpants - @ 2:40:12 - "I've posted this question several times in other threads and there is never a response. " - here's yet another response ...

Bush actively exercised his abilities as Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief, and brought about the removal of the Taliban as a prominent supporter of al-Qaeda and terrorism ... that is a strongly positive thing which Bush has done ...

Interestingly enough, a number of us have pointed that out a number of times ... perhaps those times were during your black-outs while you had your attention drawn elsewhere ?

[David K.]

and came to get me cuz I'd been launching live activated ordnance at them while wearing civilian clothing

Sorry Al, but your argument falls apart here, because all the Chinese would have to do is SAY you were doing that and not have to prove it and they would hold you indefinitely. Thats exactly what the U.S. is doing right now. We are holding people who are accused of a crime but giving them no opportunity to defend themselves. That means people who may have had NOTHING whatsoever to do with what happened are rotting in prisons and being tortured and abused for no reason with no recourse. The fact that even a few people have gotten out thanks to massive outrage and outside assitance is a small miracle, and the fact that even one of the detainees has shown to be completely innocent of the charges just goes to show that there is a very real possiblity that more of them are in fact innocent. A free society gives those it holds access to atleast basic resources in order to defend themselves. To do otherwise moves us towards tyranny.

And no, i wouldn't hand them medicine right away based on one symptom, but I would start investigating possiblities once symptoms started to present, and be willing, unlike you or your hero George W. Bush to consider other options, especially when the facts showed otherwise. Once again your analogy is fatally flawed.

I also would like to point out that you have not (because you can't) given any evidence to support your claim that Obama would do more to advance a totalitarian direction in this nation than George W. Bush has done.

McClellan has added more proof to the overwhelming (but ignroed by the right) body of evidence that shows how absolutely horrible this administration has been. History will judge it as the worst in our nations nearly 250 year history. A sad period that will hopefully soon be coming to an end, to be replaced with an administration that will help repair the damage Dubya has done to our nation and its people.

[Joe Mama]

Can't you see you're in love?

[Alasdair]

I would like to welcome the real David back to this blog ...

There was briefly a commenter using the ID of "David K." who made reasonable comments - unlike Our David ...

[David K.]

Make an argument Alasdair instead of snide comments. If you have no argument to make then go away.