McClellan's Dish and Tell: Required Reading for Campaign Aides

By Dan Balz
The Washington Post

The people who should sit down and read Scott McClellan's blockbuster new book are the people least likely to take the time to do so right now. They are the aides to Barack Obama and John McCain -- and perhaps the two candidates themselves.

The Washington buzz over the book is predictable. Few things are juicier than a relentlessly critical portrait of a president and his administration by a supposedly loyal ex-adviser, and McClellan has delivered the goods in stunning fashion. "What Happened" is indeed the question people are asking about the man who seemed least likely to dish and tell.

The former White House press secretary is now under attack from those with whom he served -- for his disloyalty to the president, his failure to speak up in a timely fashion, his failure to share his doubts with others as events were unfolding, his decision to give Bush's enemies new ammunition and his apparent personality change since being pushed out of the White House.

They, of course, overlook or underplay what the Valerie Plame episode did to McClellan. His boiling anger at being hung out to lie about the incident is understandable. One wonders whether this book would have been written at all were it not for the deep, deep resentment he harbors toward those involved, particularly Karl Rove and Scooter Libby but also the president and vice president, for allowing -- even encouraging -- him to stand in the White House briefing room and unknowingly give out false information.

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