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Friday, May 30, 2008
McClellan and Rather
For $26 next Wednesday you can see two Texans who are not exactly tight with the Texan currently in the White House.
Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather and former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan share the bill at New York’s 92nd Street Y.
The topic? “Inside the Bush White House” and it’s all part of the promotional tour surrounding McClellan’s hot new book criticizing President Bush.
Looking for something a bit less controversial? Try Monday night’s Mah Jongg Club Night.
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Lamar Smith tells McClellan to talk to the hand
Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan isn’t getting any love from one of his hometown congressmen.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee reportedly are weighing calling McClellan to testify about some of the charges in his new tall-all about the Bush administration. But the top-ranking Republican on that committee, Rep. Lamar Smith, who represents parts of western and central Austin, said in a statement today he’s not interested.
“It’s no surprise that the liberal publisher has chosen to promote outrageous statements as part of a political smear campaign to grab headlines and sell books,” Smith said. “It should not take a congressional hearing to determine that Mr. McClellan’s statements are not credible.”
In other words, don’t save a seat for Smith when McClellan’s book tour hits BookPeople in Austin on June 21.
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Galen signs on with Hutchison
Rich Galen, a former aide to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich when they were in Congress, is going to work for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, as a senior counselor.
Galen also writes an online column at mullings.com, although he’s put the page on hiatus to await a go-ahead from the ethics police in the Senate.
But in his hiatus column, he managed to fire off this blast at press-secretary-turned-author Scott McClellan: “It was generally known in Washington that McClellan was such an ineffective spokesman that he would have done better to tack the talking points he had been given to the briefing room wall and leave, rather than waste the press corps’ time hectoring him for an hour or so every day.”
If this is the type of shot that Galen will fire at Hutchison’s adversaries (cough, Rick Perry, cough), we could be in for some fun.
Someone immediately asked whether this is another sign that Hutchison is running for governor in 2010. Perhaps. But remember that in 2005 she hired GOP campaign guy Terry Sullivan to help with her next election and many at the time thought it was a sign she would take on Perry the following year. But ultimately she chose not to run for governor and she ended her successful re-election run for Senate with a different campaign manager.
Efforts to reach the oft-quoted Galen by phone today were unsuccessful.
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Kerry takes aim at McCain using Petraeus in fundraising
Of course, those orders don’t apply to politicians who are trying to get elected president and, along with that, commander-in-chief of all military forces. Politicians like Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party.
McCain has sent out a fundraising solicitation using an image of him and Gen. David Petraeus, architect of the military surge in Iraq.
And on Friday, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who like McCain is a decorated Vietnam war hero, criticized his Senate colleague for using Petraeus’s image for political purposes.
“Sadly, it’s a straight out of the Bush playbook,” said Kerry, whose unsuccessful campaign against President Bush in 2004 campaign was undercut by a Republican-funded veterans group attacking Kerry’s military record.
The McCain solicitation using a photograph of the senator shaking hands with the general in full uniform takes a swipe at Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee.
“Something is wrong with your judgement when you want to sit down unconditionally with Raul Castro and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but you don’t take the opportunity to side down with General Petraeus and learn about the situation in Iraq firsthand.”
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Dems use McClellan’s words
Well this didn’t take long.
The Democratic National Committee quickly has cobbled together a 60-second video to take advantage of former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s accusations that President Bush misled the nation into an unnecessary war in Iraq.
The DNC’s point? “John McCain was a key part of the Bush Administration’s efforts to misrepresent the threat posed by Iraq and make war look like ‘the only feasible option.’”
Those last four words are from McClellan’s book in which he says the administration orchestrated a propaganda campaign to make invading Iraq look like “the only feasible option.”
“This week, the American people are getting a fresh look at John McCain’s key role in the propaganda machine that Scott McClellan describes in his book,” said DNC spokesman Damien LaVera. “Given that he was part of the drumbeat that misled America into war and continues to misrepresent the facts as he defends his willingness to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years, how can Senator McCain be trusted to not continue the Bush policy of cherry picking the facts on the ground in Iraq and misleading the American people?”
