Utahn who worked with McClellan remembers him as a great boss
Text 
By DOUG GIBSON
Commentary
dgibson@standard.net
For those wondering if there was a pecuniary reason why former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan was so critical of President Bush and his administration in his much-hyped memoir, "What Happened," I was offered a clue.
I was told to go to amazon.com and look up earlier Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer's 2005 pro-Bush memoir, "Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House."
So I did. If you want a hardcover used version of Fleischer's book, there are eight copies on sale for a penny. If you want a paperbook version, there are four on sale for a penny. If you want a new, pristine, never-circulated hardback version of "Taking the Heat," it's 75 cents. A brand-new paperback version is 67 cents.
Fleischer, it's recalled, received a $500,000 advance, and 200,000 hardback copies were printed. Based on sales, we can expect to see hardcover copies of "Taking the Heat" on amazon's used list for the next 100 years.
You want a political memoir that sells? Trash your boss. And that's what McClellan did. In "What Happened," he accuses the president of shading the truth during preparations for the Iraq War. He also accuses the president of lacking the integrity to fire Karl Rove for supposedly leaking classified information in the Valerie Plame investigation.
That's an odd claim, since Rove was never indicted and the investigation revealed that ex-Colin Powell deputy Richard Armitage gossiped Plame's name to journalist Robert Novak.
Not surprisingly, McClellan's book is selling well. Reaction to McClellan has mostly followed ideological lines. Former Sen. Bob Dole called McClellan a miserable creature, Rove said McClellan sounded like a left-wing blogger, and Fleischer claims that McClellan was urged by publishers to change his book to trash Bush (that claim has been supported by a politico.com article detailing McClellan's far-different original book proposal). Liberals have mostly praised McClellan's book, highlighted by a softball interview he had with MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann. (McClellan has also been interviewed by Tim Russert and Bill O'Reilly.)
I talked with Utahn Peter Watkins, who was hired by McClellan to work in the Bush White House. Watkins, who runs Watkins Global Strategies and teaches at the University of Utah, started in the White House as a volunteer in 2001. McClellan hired him in 2003. He worked there until 2005. Watkins was spokesman in the Northeast and on the West Coast for the White House Office of Media Affairs, a deputy press secretary for Laura Bush, and a press assistant for President Bush.
He has kind words for McClellan. "He was good to work with, a great boss," said Watkins. He declined to comment on McClellan's allegations in his book, but did offer insight on being a press secretary. It's different, he said, because you are serving "two masters," the press and, in McClellan's case, the president.
"You are trying to give the press all of the information possible. On the other hand, you are trying to help your boss," explained Watkins.
The irony of McClellan's book, adds Watkins, is that the Bush administration is known for its loyalty to the president. For that reason, a book by a Bush insider critical of the president has "timeliness and marketing" potential today.
"I don't know who would want to read a book like this in 10 years," said Watkins.
Conventional wisdom is that McClellan has burned his bridges in political circles, but Watkins disagrees. "Washington, D.C., is a big enough town for everyone to have a seat," he said.
McClellan may be a top-notch administrator and writer. I would watch his news conferences and would cringe in embarrassment for him. Columnist Jonah Goldberg was on target saying that McClellan often "stood at the podium looking like a McDonald's cashier flummoxed by an order."
I'm sure he had a very tough job on camera. Very few can do it effectively.
McClellan has been accused of changing his ideas to fit his book. A year ago, on Bill Maher's show, he defended the case for the Iraq war. McClellan says his beliefs changed as he recounted his tenure while writing the memoir. His Christian faith, he maintains, demanded he recount the administration's sins in "What Happened."
I guess religion can be found anywhere. Why not locked in a study, trying to meet a publisher's demands?
Gibson is the Standard-Examiner's assistant editorial page editor. He can be reached at dgibson@standard.net.
Reader Comments
So you're saying that Bush's former press secretary is telling lies. Hmm. Is anyone really surprised?
Interesting article, Doug. I can't say if McClellan's book comes across as b.s. or as a "hatchet" job, because I have not read it. It wouldn't be fair or intelligent of me to trash a book that I haven't read; but I surmise that there has to be some nuggets of truth in the book -- enough to protect McClellan and the publisher from being sued. So it's unlikely that it's all made up. I saw McClellan on the Daily Show the other night and he seemed still somewhat beholden to the Bush administration and policy to a certain extent. With the information I have about this subject, I don't think he threw Bush and pack completely under the bush. Maybe just the front wheels.
Good analysis of McClellan's hatchet job...
For the record, Bush said more than once, while feigning outrage, that he would fire anyone who leaked information about a CIA employee's identity.
Karl Rove leaked Plame's identity to Matt Cooper and then again to Robert Novak. Who cares whether it was Armitage or Santa Claus who "outed" her first; Rove verified it, at a minimum, to Novak, and leaked it pointedly to Cooper.
So he wasn't "indicted." That's funny, as if "indictment" in this day and age somehow correlates to "truth."
Note, too, that GW over time changed his tune to eventually say repeatedly that he would fire anyone who "committed a crime" by leaking the CIA agent's name -- versus, that is, promising to fire them for actually leaking it. Right? That means the person had to be indicted and convicted of an actual crime, rather that just actually doing the leaking. So, outrage at a leak? Nope, just outrage if the person gets caught and tried and convicted. Hmmmm, I think our moral might slipped a little on that one.
Doug Gibson is extremely politically astute, which means he knows how PR machines and journalists and secret sources and sneaky little off-the-record/deep-background conversations happen (HAPPEN, that is) all the time. Perhaps it was the tooth fairy and not Karl Rove (or any number of other administration officials, democrat or recpulican) who leaks information all the time.
Imagine, public officials leaking information to serve their own needs. No, not Karl Rove, of course -- I mean, he, the mastermind of manipulating information to meets one's needs. (I'm not even saying that's bad all the time!) But, in this case, my gawd people, can you not picture Rove calling all his sources