Better Late Than Never: Scott McClellan Publishes Tell-All Memoir

Share this

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has published a new memoir titled What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception in which he writes that President Bush sold the Iraq war to Americans using a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war." McClellan, known during his time as press secretary as a staunch defender of Bush Administration policies and the war in Iraq, writes that Bush aides "had outlined a strategy for carefully orchestrating the coming campaign to aggressively sell the [Iraq] war ... it was all about manipulating sources of opinion to the president's advantage ..." McClellan also admits that he allowed himself to be deceived about the exposure of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and suggests that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby may have worked behind the scenes to coordinate their stories about the Plame leak. The book's official release date is Monday, June 2.