Another Long, Dull Knife

See if you can guess who said the following (name temporarily redacted, unless you want to spoil it be scrolling down a bit - killjoy):

On the book critical of the Bush White House written in cooperation with former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill, [REDACTED] said on January 12, 2004:

“It appears to be more about trying to justify personal views and opinions than it does about looking at the results that we are achieving on behalf of the American people.”

[REDACTED] also took issue with the book by former Bush White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, on March 22, 2004:

"Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the Administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. …

Give up?  Here's a few hints: he left the Bush White House two years ago; he's written a book; and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book - in the exactly same way as Clarke and O'Neill: by shivving his former boss right between the third and fourth transverse ribs.

Seems to me "Scotty" McClellan has already pre-emptively taken himself to the woodshed in the aforequote.  Which makes him a total hypocrite, as well as a sluggardly one to come out with a "kiss & tell" memoir that echoes all the same tiresome, discredited hard Left Iraq talking points and Bushophobic caricatures at least a year past when they could have done George W. Bush any PR damage.

Guess that makes him greedy as well, come to think of it:

Here's another of "Scotty's" ex-colleagues setting the record straight on the author's reckless scriblings regarding "Plamegate":

But it is perhaps former White House counselor Dan Bartlett who sums it up best:

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. ….

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.

Bartlett needn't worry.  In order to "give credibility" to left-wing attacks, "Scotty" would first had to have had any credibility to begin with.  As has already been demonstrated, he doesn't know what he's talking about on pretty much anything to do with Operation Iraqi Freedom and its PR prelude.  To say nothing of being an abysmal judge of "propaganda" quality.  Ensign Ed provides the punchline:

[F]or those of us who have followed this White House carefully during the entirety of the war, the charge is frankly absurd. If what we saw was propaganda, it was the least effective example of it. The milbloggers with their front-line reporting have performed at least ten times as well as the White House in communicating the successes on the ground and the need to finish the mission.

Or, distilled still further, you have to engage in propaganda before you can be judged on its effectiveness.  Bush43's biggest failing is that he has never bothered trying to sell his policies, but simply throws them out there and leaves them to be mauled to pieces by the other side.  Which shows (1) how out of the loop McClellan truly was and (2) how incompetent he was at his job as press liason.

Looking back on it, competency seems to be inversely proportional to the likelihood of a Bush staffer's turning on the President after they walk out the door.  Which goes to show that What Happened isn't bereft of informational value - it reveals far more about its author than it does any of its targets.

But hey, if "Scotty" wanted notoriety, being known by your fellow Bush alumni as the perveyor of "total crap" is an order of magnitude more fame than the forgettable, hairless blobbutt would ever have enjoyed otherwise.  Maybe he can take his advance and spend the next few years getting a total makeover.

Either that, or market himself as the real-life George Costanza.

UPDATE: Well, now, doesn't THIS just figure.... 

UPDATE II: Curiouser and curiouser - Costanza's publisher is a hard-Left Bushophobe: 

Peter Osnos, who wrote Wednesday that he "worked very closely" with Scott McClellan on McClellan's new book published by PublicAffairs which Osnos founded, is a liberal whose publishing house is affiliated with the far-left The Nation magazine and the publisher of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. PublicAffairs has a roster of authors who are nearly all liberals, including six books by far-left bank-roller George Soros....

A reporter and editor at the Washington Post during the 1970s and 1980s before going into book publishing, Osnos pens a weekly column for the left of center Century Foundation. In a March column he denounced Rush Limbaugh as "bombastic, aggressive, and mean," bemoaning how the late William F. Buckley Jr. left behind "a right-wing culture that tends to be as coarse and leaden as his demeanor could be buoyant," charging Buckley provided "unfortunate cover to others who followed with a spirit that was distinctly and consistently malevolent." In contrast, he hailed the late [and vicious] left-wing columnist Molly Ivins and wished she had more impact.

This raises several exit questions: Was Public Affairs the only publisher who would return Costanza's phone callIs?  Did Osnos ghost-write it on McClellan's behalf?  Or is this perfidious tome his version of a David Brock-like "coming out of the closet" (as a neoBolshevik)? 

Pathetic, isn't it, that the best alternative on the list is to hope that McClellan is dumber than a box of, er, hair....