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Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Dept. of Better Late Than Never

posted by on November 20 at 11:18 AM

Now Scott McLellan tells us. In a leaked excerpt from his upcoming memoir, he writes that he lied to the press about the roles of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in the CIA leak case. Who told him to? Sounds like he’s pointing at President Bush, among others:

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself.

RSS icon Comments

1

Nu uh.

Posted by President Bush | November 20, 2007 11:24 AM
2

This is criminality in the White House.

when will the impeachment investigation start?

Posted by Cleve | November 20, 2007 11:30 AM
3

Notice the word "unknowingly," which exonerates the writer from charges of perjury. That word seems to come up a lot in these "revelations."

Posted by flamingbanjo | November 20, 2007 11:30 AM
4

The Press Secretary lied? Surely you jest.

Posted by JessB | November 20, 2007 11:40 AM
5

Duh !!! (But, likely still not the whole truth)

Posted by Daniel | November 20, 2007 11:41 AM
6

@ 2,

Never is a very long time.

Posted by Original Andrew | November 20, 2007 11:42 AM
7

Seems like the proper response to this revelation would be, oh I dunno, some time in prison. Though I'm old-fashioned that way.

Posted by Boomer in NYC | November 20, 2007 11:57 AM
8

@3 - why would he ever face perjury? He wasn't under oath at press briefings. He's just trying to not look like a lying piece of shit, that's all.

Posted by tsm | November 20, 2007 12:16 PM
9

Time for impeachment trials for Bush and Cheney.

Posted by Will in Seattle | November 20, 2007 12:28 PM
10

FU*K BUSH!!!

And while you're at it impeach our president too!

Posted by Madge-YoursoakingINIT! | November 20, 2007 12:29 PM
11

Day late / dollar short, Mr. White House Mouthpiece. But thanks for playing.

Posted by Greg | November 20, 2007 12:31 PM
12

tsm: good point. I guess I assume things like this are pure ass-covering, just in case anything legal comes of it. Plausible deniability seems to be de rigeur at every level of government now, especially as underlings have no doubt noticed that blame tends to trickle downward these days.

I'm also guessing that disavowing willing participation in illegal and/or unethical activities is a resume-builder. Most of the rats leaving this sinking ship are doing so with an eye on their future job prospects.

Posted by flamingbanjo | November 20, 2007 12:31 PM
13

Fuck. Them. All.

Posted by It's Mark Mitchell | November 20, 2007 3:01 PM
14

oh scotty, we never believed you anyways. so it doesn't really matter.

Posted by superyeadon | November 20, 2007 3:03 PM
15

Don't you love the way all these bastards try to wash the stink off themselves AFTER they quit? "I didn't know - I swear - I was just doing my job."

I don't want to invoke Godwin's Law here, but that's been said before...

Posted by Geni | November 20, 2007 3:46 PM
16

Oy. He was about as believable in his lies as I was when I told my mom that my boyfriend and I were just watching a movie in my bedroom. Why the fuck is this news? When a "leak" is sanctioned by the publishers so they can get some publicity to increase sales, is it really a leak? Shouldn't we be headlining this, "Aspiring Author, Former Professional Liar for White House, Releases Excerpt of Upcoming Memoir?"

Posted by Gitai | November 20, 2007 5:02 PM
17

I don't put any stock in this. Scott McLellan has a LOT of sour grapes for being pushed out for the much more affable Tony Snow. He's manufacturing this just to get even.

Besides this is a total red herring since it was Richard Armitage that leaked supposedly "covert" Ms. Plame's name to Robert Novak.

Posted by raindrop | November 21, 2007 8:28 AM

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