Posted 8:26 AM by steve

I had called Scott McClellan the worst White House press secretary of all time, as time and time again he stood idly by while the Bush Administration was trashed, failing to offer up any (one of many legitimate) counter to the negative portrayal that the White House press corps was painting of the Bush Administration. I couldn't - and still can't - imagine how anyone could do a worse job of defending an Administration from its critics.

Well, it appears that McClellan's heart just wasn't into it, judging from the preview of his upcoming expose of his time in the Bush White House. It seems that McClellan actually agreed with many of the charges against Bush, that he had used propaganda to sell the war, that his aides were liars, that other aides were incompetent and so on.

All of which raises two questions.

First, if McClellan wasn't into doing his job, why didn't he quit long before he did? I don't care if you're the White House press secretary or working in the private sector, if you can't buy into the company mission, you have a moral duty to resign and stop taking the paycheck. Taking a paycheck obligates you to do more than just show up for work, it obligates you to put everything you can into helping the company achieve its goals, and if you can't do that because you don't believe in what the company is trying to do, you have no business taking the company's money.

Second, and a question I've asked before, why didn't Bush force McClellan out long before McClellan actually got around to quitting? Was Bush (and his staff) so clueless that they didn't see and couldn't tell that McClellan was just going through the motions? Did they actually look at the job McClellan was doing and think they were getting good value for the money? Didn't they ever go to bed wondering why the White House press secretary was so uninterested in defending Administration policies?

While a fair amount of criticism should be thrown at McClellan, first for not having the courage to resign and then for betraying confidences by writing this book, let's not forget to throw a whole lot of blame at the person ultimately responsible for the whole mess: George Bush. He's the one who signed off on McClellan getting the job, and he's the one who at any time could have demanded a press secretary who actually believed in the job and had the competence to get it done.