A Final Plea To Congress To Out This Accountability-Denying, National Security-Breaching, Justice-Obstructing Administration

Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan remains the master of Orwellian obfuscation, only these days for fun and profit.

The Bushies -- who now include a long and growing list of former acolytes, such as McClellan -- as well those constitutionally charged with overseeing their misdeeds, can't even do scandal in a traditional way. You'll recall during the Nixon administration there was a thing called the smoking gun -- guns, actually. We had real investigative committees grilling thoroughly corrupt insiders and getting to the actual truth. The guns blasted and smoked almost daily. Mistakes were made, indeed, but we got to the criminal bottom of each and every one, and before the chief perp left office.

In a way, those were the days. As dark and squalid as they were, we nevertheless pulled ourselves out of the muck by exposing it to the clean light of day. And we did it by the book, which is to say, the U.S. Constitution.

Today? We see medals donned on the criminally incompetent. We witness internal promotions in repayment for the most despicable of on-the-job screw ups. We watch neocon nincompoops escape accountability and settle into cushy think-tank jobs. We get Congressional excuses and foot-dragging and table-offing.

And, we get memoirs -- those telling-all while saying-nothing memoirs, guaranteed to rake in the cash for the criminals, incompetents and nincompoops.

In April, we'll get Scott McClellan's: "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington."

Mr. McClellan probably does know much of what actually happened, but if you think he's about to tell us, think again. His publisher, PublicAffairs, will release 400 pages of little more than fog and shadows. That's what "Scottie" excels at generating; and that, of course, is the principal if not only reason he was Bush's spokesman. Clarity is the enemy of national betrayal.

His story on the Plame affair, no doubt, will stop where his publisher's teaser leaves off: "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so."

What the hell does that mean? Of course they "were involved" -- an inconsequential passive usage that fails to compete with even the just as inconsequential but at least more rhetorically ominous, "mistakes were made."

Note what he didn't write: "five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were directly and knowingly responsible for my doing so."

The latter may well be the case, but we won't read or hear it from Scottie. Indeed, he's already gone as far as he'll publicly go, without penalty of perjury. On the day Scooter Libby was convicted of just that, McClellan, who had long since left his White House podium, "made no suggestion" to CNN's Larry King "that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president 'believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given.'"

What's more, "In recent conversations and in his many public speaking engagements, McClellan has made it clear he retains great affection for the president." So don't count on anything more appearing in print, come April.

So when it does come to getting at the truth, what's missing? Think back to the Nixon days, and the missing piece looms large.

An aggressive Congress; one willing to take on a sitting president, to let the subpoenas fly and the investigators delve -- one willing to demand answers that travel beyond the obfuscating fog and arrive at the liberating truth. McClellan's "teaser" may in fact say little of authentic substance, but it does profoundly add to Congress' already plentiful cause for investigating obstruction of justice at the highest level.

I realize there are Democratic swing districts that might be endangered by an aggressive Congress, and that upholding the rule of law and enforcing constitutional imperatives pale in comparison to such electoral exigencies. But millions who retain some affection for the Constitution are beggin ya: Give it a go, anyway. You might be surprised at the public's reception -- a public that has had enough of this accountability-denying, national security-breaching, justice-obstructing administration.

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... to support p m carpenter's commentary, because writers need to eat, too -- and thank you!

Comments

[epppie]

I think both parties are history come the fall. Time is growing short, but I still believe that a Progressive Party will coalesce around the Will of the People and drive every single Pub and Dem out of office. There will be a clean sweep not seen since 1776.

[Alex]

This whole Utterly Incompetent mis-administration may be the "masters" of deception, or is it the fact that we are so easily deceived? And why? That is a question I do not have an answer to.

[serena1313]

With all the scandals, politicizing the entire government including the judiciary and the military, outing a covert agent, voting irregularities, Iraq, Katrina, torture, extraordinary renditions -- the list goes on and on -- and yet Congress does nothing? It is mind boggling.

What happened to:

the rule of law?

Accountability?

the Constitution?

Checks-and-balances?

Or don't they matter anymore?

[Nina]

Alex, this is what I call the dumbing down of the American people...Our education is down the tubes and you know we're in trouble as a country when more people vote for the American Idol than in a presidential election. I still hear (not many these days) bush supporters call in and still say what a marvelous job he's doing and can't understand why so many are calling in to trash him and his administration....You have to wonder where these people get their information, if any?

[via]

I still think the millions of 'missing' White House emails, many from Rove, hold the answer. Get the emails, get the truth. Get the lying, criminal conspirators out of our White House. They are traitors, having exposed a covert CIA agent for their own political purposes. They should be on trial today, not continuing to wreck our country from the inside out.

[chanceny]

Scotty's way-too-late confessional will do no more harm to W than any of the other 'truth tellers' who have left the fold but still retain the love for their dear demented leader. Maybe it's fear based, perhaps it's faith based, but Scotty will cash his check, smile, go door-to-door on our tv screens and manage to say nothing.

[Ronald Withrow]

Maybe we should ask Greg Palast what many of those emails contained. Some goof in the WH dumped over 500,000 of 'em to the WRONG email address (WhiteHouse.com, a satire site) and made them accessible to anyone with the temerity to access them (Palast). It became the basis of his story on vote caging by Rove and other Repug operatives. Try reading the Guardian 'cause you won't find any American papers covering it!