Friday, May 30, 2008
McClellan 's Tell-All Book
Unlike George Tenet, who danced around the edges in his book, At the Center of the Storm, excerpts from former presidential press secretary Scott McClellan's What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception pulls no punches about the president, his key cabinet members, and all others who played a role in deceiving the American people about going to war against Iraq.
Dana Milbank in The Washington Post
- "We set up a massive political operation that was aimed at really continuing that permanent-campaign way of governing," he informed the listeners of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."
- "We got caught up in the excesses of the permanent-campaign culture in Washington, D.C.," he explained to viewers of NBC's "Today" show.
- By nightfall, he was on MSNBC's "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann, discussing "these partisan excesses that have existed . . . because of the permanent campaign in Washington, D.C."
- Just as they had through the middle years of the Bush presidency, the airwaves again echoed with McClellan's litanies yesterday.
Coming from a former member of the inner circle, McClellan's book made waves and will continue to do so for a while. But for some of us the excerpts produced a yawn and a sense of revulsion. McClellan was a member of the team during and after the grand deception. No matter how he tries to wiggle and explain his silence, McClellan's failure to do the honorable thing by leaving his job and speaking out is inexcusable, and the overwhelming feeling is that it is all about money.
What next? Perhaps Colin Powell -- another member of the inner circle who suffered in silence and then commented about being duped -- is writing a book. Although General Powell has spoken out about being deceived and kept out of the loop, he has been restrained in his criticism of the president. He received shoddy treatment but at this stage the good soldier might not stoop to the levels of Tenet and McClellan.
News about high suicide rate amongst soldiers of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars took me back to what I wrote last November about returning soldiers, Tolls of War: PTSD and Blake Miller, the Marlboro Man One wonders whether Bush and Cheney ever think about the dead and injured soldiers. Knowing what they did to begin the war it is hard to picture them as being affected by the high price paid by soldiers. It has been reported that the president shows emotion at times. Well, knock me down with a feather.
If Bush and Cheney were Democrats the Republicans would have called for impeachment. No, they put on a circus about Bill Clinton's diddling of Ms Lewinsky and a stained blue dress but when it came to Bush and Cheney they became like the three wise monkeys: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. A pox on them all.
Reuters News WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Army on Thursday said suicides among active duty troops in 2007 had reached the highest level on record, due partly to the stress caused by deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army announced that 115 soldiers, including 22 National Guard and Army Reserve troops, killed themselves last year. That marked a 12.7 percent rise from the 102 suicides recorded in 2006. There were 85 Army suicides in 2005. It was the highest number of actual suicides in the military force since record-keeping began in 1980 and Army officials said the rate has remained at about the same level since, with 38 confirmed suicides recorded for 2008 as of last Monday. The Army also said there were 935 suicide attempts in 2007. The Washington Post By PAULINE JELINEK The Associated Press Wednesday, May 28, 2008; 2:02 AM WASHINGTON -- The number of troops with new cases of post-traumatic stress disorder jumped by roughly 50 percent in 2007 amid the military buildup in Iraq and increased violence there and in Afghanistan. Records show roughly 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with the illness, also known as PTSD, since 2003. Officials believe that many more are likely keeping their illness a secret. |
