I caught former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on The Daily Show a few weeks ago, and he was surprisingly … different. He no longer seemed quite as ridiculous defending the indefensible. Asked about Cheney, McClellan described the Vice President as “competent,” which isn’t exactly the most complementary word White House flacks are supposed to use in reference to the VP.
Last night, McClellan was willing to go even further, telling a national television audience that the current White House political strategy in relation to the Plame scandal isn’t good enough.
Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan said [last night] that if he was still advising the president he would urge him and his team to drop their policy of not talking about the Libby/CIA leak case.
“I would advise the White House to find a way to get out there and talk about it and answer some of the questions,” he said on Larry King’s CNN show tonight. He said it would be “interesting to see” if the White House can sustain its refusal to say anything through the appeal process.
After acknowledging that he felt “saddened for Scooter Libby and his family,” McClellan said the conviction “does change the equation a little bit with the American public.”
“For a long time, don’t think this has been much of a story for the American people,” McClellan said. “It been more of an inside the beltway story. But now they are kind of looking at it saying, ‘What’s going on here?’ …. And I think, Larry, it will be interesting to see if the White House can sustain not talking about this through the appeals process. They sustained it for this long, but … I would be advising the White House to get out there and find some way to talk about this in enough detail to answer some of questions that … are still hanging out there.”
If Libby got that pardon we were talking about earlier, it would no longer be an “ongoing legal matter,” and White House officials could talk about the case to their hearts’ content. (Which, I suppose, suggests a pardon won’t come too soon.)
That said, McClellan’s change of heart is helpful. He stonewalled the press for years, repeating lies given to him by his colleagues.
Now he believes the Bush gang owes the nation an explanation.
It’s unlikely the White House will take McClellan’s advice, but in case anyone in the West Wing needs a refresher, Dan Froomkin helps get the ball rolling with a few questions that need answering.
It’s time for President Bush and Vice President Cheney to come clean about their roles in the White House’s outing of a CIA agent and the ensuing cover-up.
It’s actually long past time. But with former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby’s conviction on charges of perjury and obstruction yesterday, the stench of corruption has taken formal residence at the White House.
The president and vice president can pretend it’s not there, and can continue to hide behind their weak and transparent excuse for not commenting on an “ongoing criminal investigation”.
But the trial is over. The investigation is over. And the conviction of a liar in their midst has made it more imperative than ever that the leaders of this country fully address the American people’s legitimate concerns that the lies in question were intended to hide from public view even deeper skullduggery at the highest levels of the administration….
Reporters yesterday glibly expressed no surprise by the White House’s refusal to comment. The proper response, however, is sustained outrage, until every last critically important question is addressed.
Among those questions, just for refresher purposes:
* What did Bush know and when did he know it?
* Did Cheney tell Libby to leak Plame’s identity to reporters?
* How involved was Cheney in the cover-up? How involved was Bush?
* Why is Karl Rove still working at the White House?
* What are the ethical standards for this White House? What is considered acceptable behavior and what is not? What is a firing offense?
That’s a start.
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