Customer Reviews

What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception

5 star:		(82)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(37)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Scott McClellan was given information to relay to the press about the Valerie Plame incident. Two years later he became convinced he'd been set up to spread lies - maybe not directly by Bush, but certainly by Rove and Libby, and encouraged by Cheney. That was his apparent tipping point. McClellan rethought the whole tenure of his association with the Bush Administration in Washington, began to have epiphanies, and formed new opinions. He doesn't tell us much we didn't already know or suspect, but boy does he tell it. This time around it's coming from a trusted insider who followed Bush to Washington from Texas. Here are a few of his observations:

*Bush believes his own spin (better known as [...]) and demonstrates a remarkable lack of inquisitiveness.

*Bush favored propaganda over honesty in selling the war. Cheney steered war policy behind the scenes, leaving no fingerprints.

*Bush and his team repeatedly shaded the truth, manipulated public opinion, and sold the Iraq situation in such a way that the use of force appeared to be the only feasible option.

*Contradictory evidence was ignored or discarded, caveats or qualifications to arguments were downplayed or dropped, and a dubious al-Qaida connection to Iraq was played up.

*The Bush administration didn't check their political maneuverings in at the door after the win - instead, they maintained a permanent campaign mode, run largely by Rove.

*Presidential initiatives from health care programs to foreign invasions were regularly devised, named, timed and launched with one eye (or both eyes) on the electoral calendar.

*Operating in the campaign mode means never explaining, never apologizing, never retreating. Unfortunately, that strategy also means never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising.

*Bush is out of touch, operates in a political bubble, and stubbornly refuses to admit mistakes.

*The press is partially responsible for giving Bush soft questions and enabling the president.

*Despite the expose, McClellan describes Bush as a man easily intelligent enough to be President, possessing personal charm, wit, and enormous political skills, who did not consciously set out to engage in these destructive practices.

*McClellan asserts, "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary and the Iraq war was not necessary."

Let's analyze this a little. All administrations - all humans - try to present themselves in the best possible light, usually to the point of self-deception. Bush insisted from the beginning on certain points of discipline in his administration and under his guidance they did it better - in my opinion, beyond better, extending to abuse of executive power. I don't dislike all the items on Bush's agenda, but it's hard to tolerate a presentation so one-sided it borders on dishonesty. I think McClellan is right in that Bush successfully sold us a bill of goods on Iraq. Even Wolfowitz conceded, "Iraq's supposed cache of WMD's had never been the most compelling casus belli. It was simply one of several. For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, WMD's, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

So it wasn't WMD's. Bush was influenced by his war cabinet and others to invade Iraq to seize a valuable piece of real estate. This power grab was going to change the balance of power in the Middle East, change history, and create a legacy for Bush - but he forgot to read the history books. They demonstrate how many times we have attempted to democratize a country and failed - starting with the Philipines in 1898. After the Cold War ended, many democratized of their own accord - when they were ready. War is not a thing to initiate on a hunch.

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth or easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tide and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."

- Winston Churchill

Many people have assumed this book is a tirade against the Bush administration, a ranting and an epiphany. It really isn't. It's actually a rather tepid affair, and it doesn't really reveal anything we haven't already heard.

Scott McCellan sounds more sad and disillusioned than anything. In the beginning, he actually like George W. Bush and sincerely believed (quite naively) that Bush was going to end the partisan divide that engulfs Washington. He really felt that Bush could bring the country together, and felt, at heart, he was a compassionate conservative. Needless to say, Bush didn't govern from the center but from the hard right, and Bush became arguably the most partisan president in history. Knowing about Rove's hardball tactics in Texas, it's kind of silly that McCellan would actually believe that Bush would bring people together.

The book reveals that Bush lied about the war, that Bush isn't a particularly curious person, that there were no WMD's. Well, most of us who have been following the news over the last number of years know this very well, so the book isn't this shocking expose. Bush lied about the Iraq war, and it's a horrible thing, but at this stage of the game, it's not particularly revealing or shocking.

As a book, it's an OK read. For those who expect a visceral tirade against the Bush adminstration, look elsewhere. This one is still critical of Bush and Cheney, but McCellan is more disillusioned than angry here, and after all is said and done, it's a rather tepid book.

I'll admit up front that I'm not a G. W. Bush fan in the least. I didn't vote for him twice, and consider myself a true blue Democrat. So, you might be saying, "Of course, he's going to give the book five stars" because of his political beliefs. In actuality, as I will mention later on in the review, this book managed to somewhat change my picture I have of our current president for the better, all the while, giving an intriguing glimpse into his administration.

"What Happened", written by Scott McClellan, former press secretary to the Bush White House, provides a very interesting look at the operations within the everso secretive machinations of the house on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. McClellan describes in a brief and accessible way his experiences as he worked his way up to his position. The "secrets" he revealed aren't stunning to anyone who's spent time reading the newspapers or following the coverage on the Plame scandal, or the build up to the Iraq War. What's interesting is that someone who had inside knowledge, "was in the know" about so much of this, confirms and denies much.

I won't go through a laundry list of claims that Scott tells in the book. The overt coverage, and other reviewers, have done that enough. I will tell you that, despite his accusations and thoughts about his time in the White House, the story paints a far broader picture than these "stunning revelations".

As with many political memoirs, the author recounts his childhood life and his lead up to his current position in a slow, detail orientated, tedious way. Not McClellan. He jumps into the story feet first, and provides one, maybe two chapters dealing with his early life, and most of it pertaining to when he began to work with then Gov. Bush. Thankfully, 95% of the book solely focuses on the White House years.

McClellan fully admits, throughout the book, to what he saw and didn't see, knew and didn't know. People looking for evidence that Bush rushed to war right after 9/11 will be disappointed. I appreciated his candid thoughts about people still currently serving in the White House, from Condi Rice to Vice-President Cheney. His discussion on the Valerie Plame scandal is extremely thorough, mainly because he became press secretary during that time.

However, and this is near revolutionary, I admired McClellan's discussion on a topic covered extensively by the media: the personality of Bush. It's clear that at first he admires the man, and throughout his time, I believe that admiration deepens. But McClellan's admiration isn't blind; he's able to view Bush as a person, complex and whole. I spent the last few years demonizing the man, thinking his public persona of being inflexible and resolute, was truly what he was like. However, after McClellan telling about Bush visiting the military wounded, and other actions done in the privacy of the White House, I've come around a bit and (here is where I gulp), see Bush as more of a whole person now.

And for that alone, I give the book five stars. History will judge the Bush Adminstration for it's actions. "What Happened" gives us an inside peek at the man at the center of the storm, and what is a peek it is.

NOTE: This is a final edited version of the "diary" review I began last week. My local mall bookstore had the book on their shelves less than one week before the official release, so I purchased it and began reviewing it here. In lieu of the drawn out, repetitive "diary," that was previously here; having completed the book I am re-working the review so that it is more cohesive.
Originally I was compelled to join this discussion for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that most of the other reviews at the time (and still) are/were very partisan and from folks who obviously have not read the book. Secondly, over the years my political leanings have changed towards the center. This is a key part of McClellan's book which is obvious to anyone who has read it. The author is a Republican, and has many good things to say about W. Bush and others, and, as you might typically expect from a Republican, negatives about the Clinton Admin. Yet (as we all know) he also criticizes aspects of the current Administration; yet rather than a best-selling "gotcha" work by a Coulter or Franken, he offers up an honest look at the good, the bad, and everywhere in between of all sides of our current political situation.
The book is well structured. It does not begin, as so many of these recent books do, by with 9/11, but instead begins with a look at McClellan's work in the White House, then shifts to the author's beginnings in the political world as the son of one of the nation's first female Mayor's (of Austin, Texas), and relationships with family members such as his Grandfather who was the highly respected Dean of a Law School. This helps the reader become grounded in the moral and ethical upbringing of the author.

The reader sees early on that the author is qualified for the White House job as he served in a like capacity for then Governor George W. Bush in Texas. During this portion of the book, as well as others, the reader is also availed of many of the positives of George W. Bush that helped him to be elected both as a governor and president. He had a record in Texas of reaching across the aisle and working with others for the good of the state. From the author's detailed, yet readable (meaning not boring) accounts of his upbringing the reader can understand right away how he likes the idea of working together for the good of the country. He admits that bare knuckle campaign tactics are used when people run for office, but remembers a time that once the dust had settled, our country used to come together and move forward.

What makes this book even more interesting and enlightening is to be reading it while listening to the all the support/attacks on it from those who have not read it. For instance as McClellan talks in depth about his experience on the campaign trail with W and his (McCl's) part in the Florida recount, the reader sees a loyal Republican team player.
It is around Chapter 5 where the core political analysis from McClellan comes in. He introduces from different books about the concept of "the permanent campaign" - which that chapter's title. Here the book goes from bio to an in depth look at the modern political culture by paring down the various traits i.e. "gotcha politics" and spin machines and more. He ties this into the overall reach of the book by beginning to point out where the new W. administration began to be flawed. He writes on page 72 "Unfortunately, the incoming Bush administration learned some of the wrong lessons by watching the Clinton White House. As they planned for the new regime in Washington, they did nothing to change the status quo." He goes onto explain the "everyman, reach-across the aisle" politician that W was as Governor; they same theme that W campaigned on as president was not appropriately carried over as the people surrounding the new leader of our country decided to play the game by the same Washing rules used by the Clinton's folks (adding that the current administration took that brand of politics a step farther).

The biggest shift in policy of course begins appropriately with 9/11 where we get his interesting insight and perspective to that day and period. Again the author continues with a (in my humble opinion) non-partisan balancing act as he criticizes Carl Rove as the first to make 9/11 a partisan issue, but at the same time has no kind words for one Sen. Clinton who, although not the first, made a big partisan move from the other side of the aisle. It is around this period that shatters the image of hope that McClellan had for the W. Bush admin - one that could break the partisan stuff and work together. He sees 9/11 as a time where we could have built on that, but people went back to their play books.

The book continues with the thesis of what Bush wanted the administration to be but what it became instead, due in no small part to running of the "permanent campaign" which relies too much on propaganda and less on an open sharing and questioning of the issues. Added to this (as we have heard) is the press' blind following of the former, and not earlier on strongly questioning the reasons for going to war with Iraq.
What Happened continues on this vein trough the rest of McClellan's tenure in the administration. I found this to be an open and honest read by a credible person and one that is good for all who have an open mind to pick up and read. The current political game being played out in our time is being played by both parties and the author gives food for thought looking not only at who is to blame (and remember he goes to B0TH sides of the aisle for this), but also what all of our future leaders, including new Presidential Administrations can do to alter this negative course of "gotcha" politics which our country is currently engaged.

On page 116, McClellan states his major thesis: "The problem in Washington is systemic and transcends the personal flaws of any single politician." Unlike the author, I have a deep ideological and political dislike for this administration but I do share with him a greater concern for the negative changes in our national political dyanmic. This book adds greatly to an understanding of what has occurred. That is the primary value of the book rather than the media's focus on its addition to the endless debate over the origins of the Iraq War.

McClellan argues that the permanent campaign has come to dominate Washington DC and that public policy is a subset of electioneering. He adds that a respect for the political opposition has devolved to an assumption that the opponent is, in many cases, evil; a legacy of the political atomization and culture wars of the sixties. The media has splintered as well into numerous outlets through the communications revolution while becoming a profit source rather than a public service department in the corporate world. Add this to a pervasive distrust of public officials, stemming from Watergate according to the author, the win-at-any-cost style of modern political campaigns and media's focus on politics as a sports contest and you have a set of systemic issues.

In another recent book by Matt Tiabbi, these developments can result in a polity that "can no longer agree even on the basic objective facts of their political existance" making reasoned and consensual decisions unlikely or impossible.

The Clinton and Bush administrations are less important in this valuable historical document by McClellan than are the author's contributions to an understanding of how recent developments have debased our election and governing process.

I would urge people to suspend judgement while reading the book and to refrain from keeping a scorecard (i.e. who is wrong, who gets points, which party can use paragraphs for talking points etc). Instead, focus on the process and what can be done to revitalize reasoned discourse, principled governance, civility and respect for the opposition.

I am a life-long Democrat who would rather see a Republican administration that champions this approach in office rather than one from my own party which extends this negative dynamic. I hope fellow Americans who are Republican feel the same way.

In particular I wanted to address Chapter 15 "Out of Touch". He reviews the disaster of the Hurricane Katrina and the message comes out loud and clear, Bush couldn't make the decisions other than to say get it done (whatever that would have been). Bush failed to realize the disaster for what it was, and failed to properly assess how he, the President, should have responded, which response was quite plainly pathetic. I will always remember the views of the people on rooftops and Bush in his bunker as well as the lone photo op Karl arranged for him on board air force one so out of touch so out of his mind.

I cannot ever forgive him and his Senior Advisors for the utter and complete failure to decide to attack and invade Iraq without an end game without considering input from more sober and experienced Sr. Advisors namely, consider the end game, the consequences and of course all of our young courageous men and women, where some gave, some gave all. God Bless America and may be be humbled by our blunders as led by this President.

Don't listen to all those who criticize this man for writing the book. Instead, read it, and then read it again because it is much more than just a political book by an insider in Bush's White House. Sure, it depicts Bush in an unfavorable light at times, but it also praises him. More important, it provides a behind the scenes look at the Presidency and how it works together with poignant suggestions as to how to improve the political process so that Congress and the President may truly work together. McClellan is all about inclusiveness, with politicans working alongside each other for the good of the country. This fresh attitude is exciting and McClellan should be commended for having the courage to write such a book. A must read. Please read it.

Thus begins the End Game, where George W. Bush's place in history has passed the point where it could be considered salvageable - and the best that can be hoped for is to substitute personality flaws for less charitable analyses. Analyses having to do with things like ideology, demagoguery, empire, profits and plutocracy.

One word you won't hear too little of in Scott's book is "propaganda" - he readily admits it, and of his role in disseminating it - although he considers it little more than another word for Marketing, something that the Permanent Campaign of Modern Politics requires. And while he may have done whatever was required of him to stay On Message, he goes to great lengths trying to protect his own integrity by claiming that he never knowingly lied to the press.

It's more interesting to consider what's not discussed in the book rather than what is - about 2/3 of which is spent discussing the Valerie Plame affair and Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina. What you won't read anything substantive about is Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Libby, think-tank co-editors of "Rebuilding America's Defenses", the Sep. 2000 white paper from the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). This virtual cabal, which plotted the course of America's re-takeover of the Middle East with the help of a "New Pearl Harbor", isn't mentioned at all - and as far as neocon strategy goes, the author hints that while empire and oil may have been motivators for Cheney et. al, Bush was operating on a higher plane of idealism - merely wanting to "bring freedom to the Middle East" (D'oh!) while using scare tactics and hyped WMD threats to sell it.

So, let's sum up what I learned from reading "What Happened" :

1. Scott's Sorry. Really, Really Sorry. He was too close to the bubble of Bush's Reality Distortion Field to see this earlier. And he's sorry now. Did I mention that he's sorry?

2. Scott doesn't want you to think that George and his cabinet may have had advance warnings about 9/11 before it happened. George Tenet's "Imminent Attack On US" memo is the only reference, and he blows it off with the "Old News" spin that was anything but Old News when discussed in Tenet's own book.

3. Scott doesn't know what makes Cheney tick. He's a secretive guy who's good at keeping his fingerprints off things. He seems kinda shady. That Rove guy too, but you've gotta admit he's got skills.

4. George Bush is a Really Nice Honorable Guy that you could sit on a back porch drinking beer with, and it's Too Bad he doesn't like thinkin' `bout things too gosh darn much.

5. Scott's not a liar. He's Really Honest. And he's sorry if he ever passed some lies along. At the time, he thought they were true. So he's a victim, too! And He's Sorry.

The End.

As a piece of literature, history, and autobiography, Scott McClellan's media attention grabbing book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception isn't great or even good. As someone who loves reading books, I found myself skipping over entire chapters with ease to get to the part that mattered simply because McClellan's personal story quite frankly isn't all that interesting, and nobody really cares about what was going on in the Bush Administration before the really important decisions started being made on the morning of 11 September 2001.

And I'm not at all sure what to think about Scott McClellan the man after reading this short little book. He says that he signed on with George W. Bush's Presidential campaign, and became part of the White House staff because he really thought that Bush would change politics in Washington. His only evidence for that seems to be his observations of how Bush behaved as Governor of Texas; but, as McClellan himself admits, the Governor of Texas is relatively weak and forced to work with the legislature and other statewide office holders to achieve his goals. The fact that McClellan thought Bush would act the same was as President of the United States as he did as Governor of Texas strikes me as incredibly naive to say the least.

Anyway, sign on to the White House Staff he did, and he became a witness to a history that will continue to be debated, evaluated, and unearthed for decades to come I suspect.

The essential charge that McClellan makes is that the Bush Administration, most especially the parts of it typified by men like Vice-President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, had motives for advocating war with Iraq separate and apart from the alleged threat of Saddam Hussein's WMD program. Specifically it was the idea, born even before al Qaeda flew airplanes into buildings in New York and Washington, that the United States should devote itself, and it's military and financial resources to remaking the political makeup of the Arab world.

This isn't an entirely new allegation. The Washington Post's Thomas Ricks reported much the same in his history of the Iraq War. The difference with McClellan's book is that the same information the Ricks reports as coming from Pentagon sources now comes, first hand, from a White House insider.

McClellan also makes the point that President Bush, and other war advocates, reached a point in their minds sometime in 2002 where it pretty much didn't matter what the evidence regarding Iraq's WMD program might have been. They had decided to go to war, and choose to emphasize only the evidence that supported their conclusion.

More importantly, as McClellan notes and Ricks substantiated, they went to war with an entirely unrealistic idea of how the war should be fought, how the Iraqi people would react to foreign occupiers in their land, and what type of force should be left in the country after Saddam was overthrown. The result was to create the opportunity for the emergence of an insurgency that has killed more American soldiers, and Iraqi civilians, than the war itself did. However history judges the wisdom of the decision to go to war itself, there's no question that the planning of that war was a complete and utter disaster.

The Valerie Plame affair plays a prominent role in McClellan's biography, mostly because he feels, rightly I think, that he was sent out in front of the media by those above him to make statements that weren't entirely true. Whether or not a crime was committed in leaking Valerie Plame's name to the press isn't what's really relevant; what's relevant is the fact that the Administration deliberately engaged in a campaign to discredit a report by her husband that contradicted the Administration's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged nuclear weapons program.

As it turns out, Joe Wilson was right about that, and the Administration was wrong. There was no chance of an Iraqi-created mushroom cloud being unleashed on an American, or Israeli, city in 2002-03 because there was no real nuclear weapons program in Iraq. Just like there was no chemical weapons program and no biological weapons program.

What McClellan's book reveals most starkly, though, isn't the lies, mis-statements, mis-steps, and outright incompetence that predated the Iraq War. It's the decision making process inside the Bush Administration. Once the President made a decision, it was made even if the evidence revealed later suggested that it should be re-evaluated.

Some people call that courage. I call it dumb-headed stubbornness.

When I heard that the former White House press secretary had written a "tell all" book on his years with the Bush administration, I was interested in much the same way that rush hour drivers are interested in an accident on the other side of the freeway. I knew that McClellan had been press secretary through some of the most harrowing days of the Bush administration and felt a bit sorry for him because I believed that he had been lied to on numerous occasions by the President himself as well as the inner circle of the administration. I didn't expect the book to be enlightening but I found myself wanting to read about the carnage.

It was no surprise that this book was ruthlessly attacked by those within and close to the Bush administration. The book was mostly characterised as an angry response by a bitter former employee. At first, this actually made some sense to me. But then I thought about the interviews that McClellan had given around the time he resigned from his post. At that time, he seemed like a loyal Bushie who had simply reached burnout. So why would he change his tune a year or so later?

The reasoning became more apparent when I read the preface to "What Happened." According to the author, it wasn't until he began the process of reflection that the writing of a memoir requires that he began to formulate the views he chose to include in the book. This felt honest to me so, I decided to plunge in and see what he had to say.

The crux of this book, which I think is being left out of much of the discussion surrounding it, is the concept of the "permanent campaign" and it's negative effects on our government, society and citizens. McClellan recounts his political career prior to the White House and his years in the Bush administration from the perspective that we have gone horribly wrong in our approach to government. By treating every issue as if it were a campaign and making governing decisions entirely based on the way they will play to a particular political base, we have lost sight of the true function of government.

Although his writing isn't always as eloquent as I'd like it to be, I think Scott McClellan makes some very important points in this book. There are a lot of voices shouting for the end of bipartisanship and the removal of money from politics but, McClellan speaks to these issues with a unique inside viewpoint that gives his message and it's ability to add to the dialogue an added resonance. The fact that McClellan is, for the most part, a political conservative, helps to enforce his point that the "permanent campaign" reaches far beyond ideas of liberal or conservative, republican or democrat. It is, to steal a phrase from the Nixon era, a cancer on the heart of our political system.

D.T. Holt
http://igotalottosay.blogspot.com/