A Clearly Horrible Controversy

So now I know what it feels like to be denounced on national television by the ranking Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee . . .

Perhaps a word of explanation is in order.

On Friday morning, I tuned in to MSNBC to check out the opening moments of Scott McClellan's testimony before the aforementioned committee. As you may know, Scott (whose recent book I edited) had been invited by chairman John Conyers to tell the committee what he knows about the Valerie Plame leak--the incident that led to Scott's most serious personal embarrassment and played a major role in his disillusionment with and estrangement from the Bush administration.

After Conyers himself, the first person to speak was Representative Lamar Smith of Texas. Smith's remarks set the pattern for the day. The Republicans, led by Smith, treated Scott like an ax murderer who had unwisely chosen to testify in court in his own behalf, while the Democrats lauded Scott as a patriotic truth-teller and a courageous public servant. Other than that, the event was completely non-partisan.

Smith began the hearing like this:

REP. LAMAR SMITH, R-TEXAS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, everyone, to the Judiciary Committee's first Book of the Month Club meeting.

(LAUGHTER)

Today, it's Scott McClellan's "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." I propose that next time we consider Ann Coulter's book, "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)." It's hard to take Mr. McClellan, or this hearing, too seriously. Despite what Mr. McClellan says regarding Iraq, three different studies--the Senate Intelligence Committee report of 2004, the Robb- Silberman report of 2005 and Britain's Butler report--conclude that intelligence reports were not altered in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

And, despite this book's innuendo, a three-year independent criminal investigation found that no White House officials leaked Valerie Plame's name to the media in violation of the law. Also, it should be of no surprise that there was spin in the White House Press Office. What White House has not had a communications operation that advocates for its policies?

Any recent administration that did not try to promote its priorities should be cited for dereliction of duty. Many have asked why Mr. McClellan did not object to what he saw while he was at the White House. The reason is clear: There was nothing to object to.

So far, this was ho-hum--pretty much the same talking points that the White House and its supporters have been launching against Scott ever since his book was published three weeks ago. But then Smith veered to another angle. As you can imagine, my attention was caught by the following salvo aimed at discrediting the book:

How much influence did a biased editor have on the finished product? What edits were made to the original manuscript to make it more critical of the administration? We do know that Mr. Osnos [Peter Osnos, founder of Scott's publishing house] and Public Affairs have published six books by George Soros. Mr. Soros was the largest donor to Democratic 527 groups during the 2004 presidential election, giving over $23 million.

And we know that Mr. Osnos himself has been highly and publicly critical of the Bush administration. Also, Mr. McClellan's project editor for the book, Karl Weber, has written venomous statements about the president; for example, calling him a, quote, "clearly horrible person."

A few moments later, when the questioning proper was under way, Smith returned to this theme:

SMITH: Is it true that Karl Weber was the project editor?

MCCLELLAN: Yes, he worked with me.

SMITH: OK. Were you aware before you worked with him that he had called President Bush a clearly horrible person and said, quote, "He's consciously manipulative and deceitful"?

MCCLELLAN: No, I was not.

SMITH: OK. So in other words, someone who called the president a clearly horrible person helped you draft and edit the book, is that right?

MCCLELLAN: Actually, this is my book. I wrote this book. And he provided great help as an editor.

SMITH: Yes. Did he edit the book?

MCCLELLAN: He was an editor on the book, yes.

SMITH: OK. You write that you witnessed Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby meet in Mr. Rove's office behind closed doors . . .

And as Smith moved on toward what he hoped would be more fertile lines of attack, my five minutes in the national spotlight came to an end, at least for the moment.

Well, this was exciting! In a few minutes, my phone was ringing. Public Affairs was on the line. They were understandably nervous. Would this factoid about McClellan's editor open up a new front for the right-wing blogosphere to use in attacking Scott's book? Would Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly devote the next week to investigating this notorious anti-Bush hatemonger Karl Weber in hopes of further discrediting the Soros-linked publishing house?

Peter Osnos wasn't eager to spend a few days fending off attacks like this. "Karl, you've got to clarify this quote about Bush. Did you call him a clearly horrible person the way Smith said?"

"Well, I might have. I'm certainly not a fan of Bush. But the specific phrase doesn't ring a bell."

"Track it down! We need the facts."

So I opened up the archives of World Wide Webers and began scanning our 617 posts, looking for some time when I might have described our president as "clearly horrible."

Well, it took a while. MSNBC moved on to other stories when the committee hearings adjourned briefly for a vote on the House floor. But after about half an hour, I had worked my way back to January, 2005, and there I uncovered the tell-tale phrase. I sent an email to Public Affairs:

I checked all the contents of my blog World Wide Webers, and I discovered that the words ascribed to me by the House Judiciary Committee member, describing President Bush as a "clearly horrible person," were actually written not by me but by my daughter Laura. (As the name of the blog implies, it is a family blog, although I write most of the contents.)

There are certainly plenty of things I have written that are critical of Pres Bush, but I never used the particular words quoted.

Cries of relief and triumph broke out in the halls of Public Affairs. (Actually I shouldn't use the word "halls." Public Affairs is a modest outfit even by the standards of publishing houses. "Cubicles" would be more accurate.) Their crack publicity team promptly began sending word to media outlets and blogs that had followed up on Smith's attack, pointing out the facts and even providing a link to the original blog post that had been misattributed to me.

Now I must interrupt this narrative for a couple of important asides.

First, although it is true that I didn't actually write the post that called Bush "clearly horrible," I have no desire to distance myself from my daughter or (in the unfortunate phrase now commonly used in such circumstances) throw her under the bus. I personally wouldn't call Bush "clearly horrible," but it is certainly true that I have no use for the man. If Representative Smith's evidently incompetent staffers had studied our blog a little more carefully, I'm sure they could have found some words I actually wrote that could have been wrenched from context and used against me.

Second, and more important: So what? As Scott himself said, it was his book, not his editor's. Every word reflected Scott's ideas, and his ideas alone--and I can vouch for that, because we spent two full days going over the final page proofs line by line, with Scott agonizing over every word choice to make sure it accurately captured his perspective.

It's fun to imagine that I somehow brainwashed Scott and filled his mind, and his book, with my own sinister views. But the Chicago Manual of Style doesn't offer any tips on how to do that, so I stuck to the normal work of an editor, tedious and humdrum as that is.

In any case, the slipshod work of Representative Smith's staff was a boon to Public Affairs and me. It was probably a stretch to imagine hordes of right-wing bloggers going nuts over anti-Bush sentiments written by Scott McClellan's editor. But it was a stretch and a half to imagine them going nuts over the same sentiments written by Scott's editor's daughter.

Scott himself was alerted to the mistake via email during a break in the hearings, and he actually inserted a correction into the public record. This effectively drained any life the story might have had except as fodder for ridicule. In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank recounted the incident this way:

"Mr. McClellan's project editor for the book, Karl Weber, has written venomous statements about the president; for example, calling him a, quote, 'clearly horrible person,' " Smith announced.

"Were you aware before you worked with him that he had called President Bush a clearly horrible person and said, quote, 'He's consciously manipulative and deceitful'?"

"No, I was not," McClellan said. Maybe that's because Weber had said no such thing. After a break, McClellan returned and reported to the committee that the line was written "by his daughter, and his daughter's name is on that post that is on the family blog site." The audience laughed. Smith did not.

The strain of the attacks from his former friends and colleagues showed in the puffy bags under his eyes, but McClellan dispatched with ease the ad hominem attacks. He had, after all, received much worse in the White House briefing room from reporters, with whom he smiled and chatted during breaks in the hearing.

In the end, only a few newspapers and blogs even mentioned the exchange in their accounts of the hearings. And much to my disappointment, traffic on World Wide Webers enjoyed only a small uptick--not the huge spike I'd been counting on as a result of my newfound notoreity.

Too bad. I guess the old right-wing slurs don't pack the same punch they used to.

A Country Full Of Scott McClellans

Just a couple of additional points about Scott McClellan and his book What Happened. (The picture shows me and Scott with Jon Stewart after the taping of last night's Daily Show.)

1. Isn't it funny how the Bush administration's response to the book has proven one of Scott's main points? Scott criticizes the Bushes for responding to any challenge or criticism not with a reasoned, honest, fair consideration of the arguments raised but rather with an orchestrated barrage of pre-arranged talking points designed to destroy the critic's credibility and batter him or her into silence. And no sooner does Scott publish his book making this point than the administration responds with an orchestrated barrage of pre-arranged talking points designed to destroy Scott's credibility and batter him into silence.

2. There's been a fair amount of vitriol directed at Scott from the left, excoriating him for raising his criticisms "too late," for being a gullible fool for swallowing the administration's lines for so long, for willingly supporting and abetting the administration's agenda during the crucial months of the run-up to war, etc. These criticisms are easy to make, and some of the motivations behind them are understandable. In particular, it's really galling for those of us who were "right" about Bush and the war to still be treated with condescension and scorn by those who were so disastrously wrong. It's tempting to vent some of that frustration on a target like Scott.

But Scott is not alone. Scott is part of that vast group of people who make up the fifty percent drop in Bush's approval rating between October 2001 and today. He represents tens of millions of Americans who, like him, were inclined to give the president and his advisors "the benefit of the doubt" in the wake of 9/11 but who now realize they didn't deserve it. Many of those people have become seriously disillusioned with the Republican Party and are openly shopping for a new person and party to transfer their allegiance to. Obama has a real chance of winning support from many of them (including Scott).

Verbally abusing people like these doesn't help our cause. If you are so angry at Scott himself that you don't even want his vote in November, fine--but let's not go out of our way to alienate the many other well-intentioned people who have made the same journey as Scott and who are now wondering whether they can ever feel at home in the Democratic party.

Five Facts and One Question

First, the facts:

Book advance paid to Ari Fleischer: $500,000.

Book advance paid to Karen Hughes: $1,000,000.

Book advance paid to Karl Rove: $1,500,000.

Book advance paid to George Tenet: $4,000,000.

Book advance paid to Scott McClellan: $75,000.

Now the question: Which of these books has critics on the right frothing at the mouth about an author "cashing in" on his White House service? Three guesses . . .

Knee-Capping Scott McClellan

Watching the flood of coverage of Scott McClellan's book has been fascinating. It's amazing to see how many thousands of columnists, reporters, pundits, politicos, bloggers, and commenters have been willing to opine authoritatively about the contents of the book, Scott's motivations, how he wrote the book, etc. etc. without having read the book itself. (It is still not on sale, and just a few advance copies have been circulating among members of the media and some insiders.)

One day I may write something extensive about this experience and the truths it illustrates about how opinions get shaped and spread in today's idea marketplace. For now, I just want to offer brief responses to some of the most common fallacious criticisms Scott has been receiving from diverse sources in the mainstream media and the blogosphere.

1. Criticism #1: "This is not the Scott McClellan we know and love. Why didn't he express his doubts to us, his friends in the White House?"

This is the party line being parroted by everyone in and around the administration, from Ari Fleischer and Dana Perino to Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove. It might make sense if you believe that the Bush administration is made up of people who are genuinely interested in sincere self-criticism and self-examination. What do you suppose would have actually happened if Scott had ventured to talk about his misgivings about the Iraq war and the way it was being sold. I can just hear Rove's reaction now: "Gee, Scott, I never thought of that before! Forthrightness and honesty, eh? What a great idea! Let's go for it!" And Dick Cheney: "I guess you're right, Scott--this war really isn't necessary. Call off the invasion!"

2. Criticism #2: "Why didn't McClellan go public with his accusations earlier, when it might have made a difference?"

Here the idea is that, if Scott had resigned in protest (in 2003, say), and disclosed his incipient doubts about the administration, it would have shifted public opinion against the Bush team and changed history for the better. Sounds nice--except that testimony from disgruntled former insiders like Richard Clarke, John Dilulio, Paul O'Neill, and the retired generals who criticized the Iraq policy didn't have any such effect. Why on earth would McClellan's testimony have tipped the balance?

3. Criticism #3: "Isn't McClellan just taking the easy route to riches by trashing an unpopular president?"

I already debunked the notion that Scott could expect to get rich from his book. (I'm happy to see Jonathan Alter on MSNBC this evening emphasizing the point that Public Affairs, in particular, is well known for its modest advance payments.) But now I see blogger Ezra Klein (whose work I generally like a lot) implying that Scott is somehow being cowardly in criticizing Bush now, when most of the public has already turned against him:

George W. Bush is now the most unpopular president since the advent of modern polling. His disapproval rating passed 70 percent last week, higher than any leader before him. It has been 40 months since a majority of the country supported his presidency. And now, now Scott McClellan tells of us of his dedication to the truth, and his disgust with the propaganda used to sell the war. . . This doesn't come close to clearing his name.

Okay, but this ignores the reality of Scott's social, professional, and political milieu. For someone like Scott McClellan--a lifelong Republican, a Texas loyalist and friend of Bush, a man whose career and livelihood were derived from Bush and who spent seven years of his life at the very center of the Bush circle, surrounded by people who admired Bush and regarded dissent or disagreement as suspect, if not downright evil--for someone like this to write a book like What Happened is absolutely not an act of cowardice.

Ezra may not think the book "clears Scott's name." That's fine. Scott might even agree. (He devotes a fair amount of time in the book to describing his own mistakes and his complicity in the misdeeds of the administration.) But Scott doesn't deserve to be excoriated for writing the book. (Ezra: "Just the tinny bleatings of a man who abetted a lying, disastrous presidency because it seemed like a good gig, but doesn't want his name maligned by the historians.")

Judging by some of the anger against Scott being vented by critics on the left, you'd think his book was intended to somehow justify or excuse the sins of the Bush team. Of course it doesn't--as the defensive reaction of the Bushies themselves makes clear.

There's plenty of room for fair criticism of Scott and his book. But let's not get distracted by arguments that are illogical, irrelevant, or unrealistic.

Write A Book, Get Rich--In Your Dreams

Well, the floodgates on Scott McClellan's book What Happened really have opened. Six days before the official publication, Google is already linking to no fewer than 364 news stories about it--testimony, I guess, to the remarkable power of The Politico to set the agenda for the rest of the media.

As everyone connected with the book expected, the reactions are all over the map, and some are harsh. As is true of any author, Scott and his book are fair game, of course (though it would be nice for people to actually read what he wrote before they start attacking him). But one idea that seems to surface any time someone writes a book really deserves to be debunked. This is the notion that book authorship is a road to wealth, which leads to accusations of people "cashing in" or "getting rich" off their tell-all memoirs.

Of course it's true that a handful of book authors make millions (as for example Obama and Hillary Clinton have done). But just a handful. The vast majority of authors, even of relatively successful books, earn royalties that total in the four or five digits--after spending hundreds or even thousands of hours in writing. Figure it out on an hourly basis, and you find that the typical book author earns less than the minimum wage. It's sad but true.

I'm not asserting that this will be Scott's fate--it's much too soon to tell how well the book will fare in the marketplace--but I would point out that his publisher, Public Affairs, is well known in the industry for the relatively modest advances they pay. Authors who sign with them do so because they value the high-quality editorial and marketing guidance they receive, not because of the lucre they expect to reap.

Go ahead and criticize Scott's book; impugn his motives if you like. But don't accuse him of getting rich off the misdeeds of the Bush administration. That's not really how book publishing works.

The Floodgates Open

Scott McClellan's memoirs (which I wrote about here) won't be officially published till next week, but The Politico website got ahold of a copy and is spilling some of the choicer beans.

For what it's worth, I think "scathing," "explosive," and "brutal" is a bit of an over-statement, but this write-up will generate buzz and should sell books. It'll be interesting to watch how this story gets played in the days to come. I'm afraid Scott will be subject to some mean counter-attacks from his erstwhile friends in Republican circles.

Back In The Blogosphere, And What Happened

Over a month since I last posted! It's a disgrace, for which I offer my abject apologies. As an explanation, not an excuse, I'll mention that I've been dedicating most of my blogging time in recent weeks to my work at The Triple Bottom Line, the blog I write with Andy Savitz about sustainable business--how some companies are actually trying to do the right thing by the environment and society as well as by their stockholders. (You might find a few of our posts there interesting. If you're curious, check out this one, this one, and this one, for starters.)

I've also been rather swamped at my day job, including (to the shock of some of my family members) an intensive period of work with none other than Scott McClellan, the former Bush administration press secretary, who has written this book about his experiences in the White House.

Don't worry, I haven't gone over to the dark side. If anything, Scott has worked himself halfway over to our side. What Happened mainly deals with his sense of dismay as he gradually realized that an administration he thought was dedicated to openness, honesty, and civility was actually just as political, deceptive, and manipulative as "the bad guys" they campaigned against--if not more so.

I've been sworn to secrecy about the details by Scott's publishers, my friends at Public Affairs. To learn more, you'll have to wait until the official publication date, June 2nd. I'm curious about the reaction the book will receive, especially from conservative commentators and critics. (And I know Scott is also very curious, if not anxious; it requires some cojones to take a principled stand in opposition to your former friends and colleagues, especially in today's ultra-politicized Washington.)

I promise to do a better job of keeping in touch with you all in the days ahead.