The real question is what happens next
SAN FRANCISCO – On his book promotion stopover here, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan was squired around by a “literary escort” in a blue convertible – no motorcades, no street closures, no Secret Service.
He slept at a Marriott Hotel, a couple of notches down from the Beverly Wilshire where he, President Bush and the rest of the White House entourage used to stay.
It is a long way from the Oval Office, where McClellan once basked in the power of the president, to the book circuit, where he is delivering a sharp critique of that president.
But a month after the explosive release of “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” McClellan seems comfortable in his new role, polishing his one-liners about Dick Cheney.
“There are a number of former colleagues that, they were friends before and they’re friends today and will continue to be,” he says.
“I hope someday that others can step back from this and I can maybe renew some of those friendships. I don’t know if that’ll happen or not.”
From the lectern, McClellan is looser and funnier than he was in the hot glare of the White House press room.
In Seattle, a sellout crowd of 850 gave him a standing ovation. In San Francisco, a liberal city Bush has never visited as president, McClellan was drowned out by applause as he said, “The war in Iraq was not absolutely necessary.”
The book accuses Bush of orchestrating a “political propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American people,” trying to make the “WMD threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear just a little more certain, a little less questionable than they were.”
After reflecting for many months after leaving the White House, McClellan says, “I realized how badly misplaced my trust was.”
McClellan is eager to answer critics who say he should have spoken up from inside the White House rather than after he resigned in 2006.
It took time to get perspective, for his ideas to marinate, he says. It was not until July 2007 that he began to write the book, and he pushed his deadline back a couple times, finishing the manuscript in mid-April of this year.
“This is the truth as best I know it from my perspective,” McClellan says.
He wants to change Washington’s culture, and believes, based on the reception he says his book is getting, that the public hungers for that, too. Beyond that, he’s not sure about work, though he’s considering academia.
“I have no regrets about writing this book whatsoever,” says McClellan. “I know it closed some doors to me; hopefully it will open some up new opportunities where I can continue to work on what I talk about in the book.”
The birthday bunch
Actor William Schallert (“The Patty Duke Show”) is 86. Actress-singer Della Reese is 77. Actor Ned Beatty is 71. Actor Burt Ward is 63. Actor Fred Dryer is 62. Actor Sylvester Stallone is 62. Actor Geoffrey Rush is 57. Singer Nanci Griffith is 55. Rapper 50 Cent is 32. Actresses Tia and Tamera Mowry (“Sister, Sister”) are 30. Actor Jeremy Suarez (“Bernie Mac”) is 18.