What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by Scott McClellan

Sep 01, 2018 Kristina rated it did not like it

Shelves: my-book, international-geo-political, non-fiction, politics, autobiography-biography-memoir, got-rid-of, can-t-finish, want-my-money-back, zcan-t-finish-2018

What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception by Scott McClellan does not qualify as worthy of my valuable and limited reading time. His prose is competent and clear enough, but within the first few pages I’m already rolling my eyes at his clear biases and naiveté. McClellan describes a reporter as a “cordial yet skeptical liberal talk radio journalist” (2). The clear indication is that cordiality is good, liberal and skeptical: bad. All journalists should be s What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception by Scott McClellan does not qualify as worthy of my valuable and limited reading time. His prose is competent and clear enough, but within the first few pages I’m already rolling my eyes at his clear biases and naiveté. McClellan describes a reporter as a “cordial yet skeptical liberal talk radio journalist” (2). The clear indication is that cordiality is good, liberal and skeptical: bad. All journalists should be skeptical. That’s what makes them good. And I’ve found that the word “liberal” can mean almost anything from radical environmentalist to fact-based reporting. As McClellan continues, he clearly delineates between “reporters/journalists” and “liberal reporters/journalists.” He describes Seymour Hersh, perhaps the most talented investigative reporter of the 20th and 21st century, as “liberal” but also a “diligent reporter with good contacts” (7). I’m sure Hersh is relieved to know that the smear of liberal is off-set somewhat by also being “diligent.”

McClellan was not a wide-eyed idealistic newbie when he joined Bush’s team. At least, he shouldn’t have been. He had helped run his mother’s campaign for the office of comptroller in Texas and had been working in Texas politics as a political strategist. However, he’s approaching this book as the disillusioned lover. The first twenty pages are filled with glowing-to-the-point-of-fawning compliments about Bush. McClellan describes him as a “man of personal charm, wit, and enormous political skill”; “self-confident, quick-witted, down-to-earth, stubborn” (but in a good, presidential leader way); “authentic, with sincere beliefs.” Bush possessing wit and enormous political skill? McClellan, you need to meet more people. Bush’s most consistent strength as a political leader was knowing who to surround himself with: strategists, experts, yes-men. Professionals who could take the burden of running the country off of him; after all, there was all that yardwork needing to be done at the Bush ranch.

While it is possible that McClellan does change course in later chapters, I doubt it. He sets the tone and theme of the book immediately by saying over and over that although he is disappointed in Bush’s decisions and behavior regarding the deception of the Iraq war and the Valerie Plame affair, Bush was unknowingly duped. McClellan excuses Bush’s actions many times. He compares him to Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Nixon—their presidencies unraveled due to their anger and defensiveness and scandals, but not Bush: “He is very much the man he always was” (xii). McClellan thinks he’s being complimentary, but he’s not. He’s basically saying, well, Bush was unchanged by the events of his presidency and not bothered at all by the deceptions that went into starting the Iraq war, a war that would affect the lives of thousands of people, not just American soldiers sent to fight this unnecessary war, but also the lives of the Iraqi citizens. “President Bush, I believe, did not consciously set out to engage in these destructive practices. But like others before him, he choose to play the Washington game the way he found it, rather than changing the culture as he vowed to do at the outset of his campaign” (xiv).

Regarding his official denial that the Bush Administration orchestrated the leaking of classified information (the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame) to the media, McClellan defends himself and Bush: “I didn’t know what I’d said was untrue until the media began to figure it out almost two years later. Neither, I believe, did President Bush. He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me” (3). The culprits, as far as McClellan is concerned are: Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, “Scooter” Libby, and Andrew Card. Oh, and the liberal, partisan media and the culture of deception that infiltrates Washington. McClellan makes much of the deceptive and corrosive atmosphere of Washington, as if this atmosphere simply created itself and controlled the actions of the political leaders of the country. Oh, wait, no, it was the Clinton White House that created the corrosive Washington culture: “Coming to Washington as a member of a Republican administration, I thought the mentality of political manipulation had been largely the creation of our predecessors in the Clinton White House and that the leader I placed great hope in, George W. Bush, was dead set on changing it” (4). Damn those Clintons, they caused all of America’s badness—and they aren’t done yet! To further this embarrassing display of stupidity and political innocence, McClellan starts chapter three by talking about the idealism of politics and how people who enter the political game do so in the hopes of finding a mythical leader to serve, one with a “strong character, free of debilitating personal flaws, and committed to striving for high ideal and bringing about something as close to Camelot as we can get, where truth, goodness, and beauty reign supreme” (11). Interesting that he uses the word “Camelot.” I’m assuming (as this is a political memoir), he means the Kennedy White House, which—if McClellan had pulled his head out of his ass and done a little research he would have known—had its own very serious problems. JFK’s tenure was short-lived and tragic, thus history looks on it with rose-colored glasses. (It also helps that he was young and handsome with a beautiful, young, fashionable wife.) He holds up the examples of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln as the “rarities” of the kind of leadership McClellan yearns for. No wonder his poor little heart was broken by George. Even though McClellan says he didn’t think George was the “most charismatic or awe-inspiring leader in the world when I went to work for him, I believed he possessed enough of those qualities to be a very good, if not great, president” (12). Awww…Scott McClellan, you’re so cute. He’s like the awkward teenager being taunted by his buddies for liking a girl so he says, “oh, gee, she’s okay, I guess, but not great.”

McClelland’s version of What Happened has a spin that can be easily perceived after reading only the preface and first three chapters. He’s an apologist for Bush. While I would like to read more about this subject, I don’t want to be told what to think. I want, as close as possible, a fact-based, bias-free narrative that allows me to decide, based on the evidence, who the assholes are. That is not McClellan’s book. He is a disillusioned lover, a man heartbroken that his hero fell from the high pedestal on which McClellan had placed him. It is a sign of our humanity that we continue to ignore the truth that politicians are mere mortals who are subject to the same temptations, character flaws, vanities, and weaknesses that we are. Politics is best approached pragmatically. We need to stop looking for a godlike figure who will solve all of our problems and rule over us with benevolence (well, except for those of the population we’ve decided are the “other” and need to be crushed beneath our leader-god’s foot). Unfortunately for McClellan, he lost his political cherry to George Bush. I don’t want to read a 300+ page book describing the act in excruciating detail. ...more

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May 31, 2008 Jacob rated it it was ok

Title: Same Old Partisan Crap

I found reading McClellan's partisan memoir to be a total waste of time. I also feel the author lacks credibility and this book offers the same old partisan view we have been fed all along. This book has been targeted towards and panders to the left-leaning partisan audience. McClellan makes a ton of allegations against the Bush Administration but doesn't provide any backing/proof. The book reads like a conspiracy theory.
Although the media response dwelled on McClell Title: Same Old Partisan Crap

I found reading McClellan's partisan memoir to be a total waste of time. I also feel the author lacks credibility and this book offers the same old partisan view we have been fed all along. This book has been targeted towards and panders to the left-leaning partisan audience. McClellan makes a ton of allegations against the Bush Administration but doesn't provide any backing/proof. The book reads like a conspiracy theory.
Although the media response dwelled on McClellan's criticism of Bush's road to war, the CIA leak case is the heart of this book. Throughout the book McClellan virtually ignores Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's role in leaking Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee to Robert Novak. That fits the partisan Democratic version of the Plame affair.
McClellan doesn't present the reader with a single page dedicated to substantial, credible evidence. In all honesty, a monkey with a pen in his hand could have done a better job at logical reasoning.
McClellan's only legitimate censure seems to be his unjust treatment during the Valerie Plame investigation. McClellan conceded in interviews that even when he was an important cog in the "propaganda machine," he never witnessed anything that seemed at the time to be deceitful or untrue. If McClellan had a problem then he should have resigned rather than being kicked out and more importantly he should have spoken up when he had the podium.
In claiming he was misled about the Plame affair, McClellan mentions Richard Armitage only twice. Armitage being the leaker undermines the Democratic theory, now accepted by McClellan that Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove aimed to delegitimize Ambassador Wilson (Democratic partisan) as a war critic.
On page 173, McClellan first mentions Robert Novak's Plame leak, but he does not identify Armitage as the leaker until page 306 of the 323-page book -- then only in passing. Armitage, anti-war and anti-Cheney, cannot fit the conspiracy theory that McClellan now buys into. When Armitage after two years publicly admitted he was Novak's source, the life went out of Wilson's campaign. In "What Happened," McClellan dwells on Rove's alleged deceptions as if the real leaker were still unknown.
McClellan at the White House podium never knew the facts about the CIA leak, and his memoir reads as though he has tried to maintain his ignorance. He omits Armitage's slipping Mrs. Wilson's identity to The Washington Post's Bob Woodward weeks before he talked to Novak. He does not mention that Armitage turned himself in to the Justice Department even before Patrick Fitzgerald was named as special prosecutor.
McClellan completely ignores that Fitzgerald's long, expensive investigation found no violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, if only because Plame was not covered. Nevertheless, McClellan calls the leak "wrong and harmful to national security" -- ignoring questions of whether Plame really was engaged in undercover operations and whether her cover long ago had been blown.
I borrowed this book from a friend to read and I'm glad that my 2 cents didn't go into this turncoat's pocket and I pray that yours don't either. ...more

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Jun 12, 2008 Mattie rated it really liked it

McClellan's memoir of "what happened" in the Bush administration really gets 3.5 stars, but since that's not an option, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt (or of the star).

Anyway - the thing about the book is not any "revelations" about what actually happened. Anyone who's been paying even a modicum of attention the past 8 years knows what happened. What McClellen does is provide an interesting perspective on how it came to happen. Admittedly, his basic theory - that the conduct of public pol McClellan's memoir of "what happened" in the Bush administration really gets 3.5 stars, but since that's not an option, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt (or of the star).

Anyway - the thing about the book is not any "revelations" about what actually happened. Anyone who's been paying even a modicum of attention the past 8 years knows what happened. What McClellen does is provide an interesting perspective on how it came to happen. Admittedly, his basic theory - that the conduct of public policy as part of the "permanent campaign" rather than as part of "governance" - isn't new with him. But he give appropriate props to Norm Ornstein & Thomas Mann as the authors and his experience is a stark example of the theory in action.

McClellan comes across as a decent guy who wants to believe the best in most people. Yet he manages to take and place enough blame to avoid coming off as self-serving or an apologist for the Bush administration. Even though he has every right to be livid with Rove and Libby over the Plame affair, he still clearly tries hard to be temperate in his comments towards them.

Again, although there's not much "new", I think a few of his observations from his experiences are really well taken. First, is that the White House really does create a bubble out of which its hard to see. Second, if you have a president without a penchant for self analysis or introspection, its all the more important for those who work for him (or her) to be willing to fight,not feed, that tendancy. Third, the tactics and mindset that make for a good campaign make for pretty lousy governance. These onservations/tendencies excuse nothing, but do help explain how public policy often goes awry, even when the people in charge are well intentioned and genuinely want to do the right thing.

I think his book also points out how easy it is for a few not-so well intentioned people to manipulate the tendencies noted above for their own purposes. I don't think that McClellan was actively trying to emphasize that point, but I can't help but think he knew he was making it. As well he should have.

What got the book the benefit of the doubt for the half-star is the fact that he ends the book with some suggestions for improving the system to help the president and White House staff avoid the worst excesses of the tendencies noted above. After all he saw, that he's still optimistic enough to offer suggestions and hold out hope that all is not lost is charming. As a native New Yorker and a Washington attorney, cynicism is both my birthright and my professional obligation. Even so, I cling to what's left of my idealism and find it heartening to know that I'm not the only one. Even more heartening is to find that one of the other people clinging to his is a Repubilcan. Maybe there's hope yet... ...more

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Jun 13, 2008 Xysea rated it liked it

Recommends it for: political junkies, poli sci students, the average taxpayer

Shelves: non-fiction, political

Okay, let's be honest. This entire book is a rationale. Well, not just one rationale, but several: For why McClellan didn't do anything despite knowing (or at the very least suspecting corruption and dishonesty) as well as why McClellan won't disavow the GOP.

All in all, though, his rationales are plausible, and that's what makes the book work. In the Bush Administration, it's easy to envision Cheney and Rove, for example, viewing McClellan as a nobody, a mouthpiece, and therefore it wouldn't mat Okay, let's be honest. This entire book is a rationale. Well, not just one rationale, but several: For why McClellan didn't do anything despite knowing (or at the very least suspecting corruption and dishonesty) as well as why McClellan won't disavow the GOP.

All in all, though, his rationales are plausible, and that's what makes the book work. In the Bush Administration, it's easy to envision Cheney and Rove, for example, viewing McClellan as a nobody, a mouthpiece, and therefore it wouldn't matter if they lied to him about revealing the identity/cover of a covert CIA operative; to them, it was just business, not personal. Only their 'business' made him a liar and Scooter Libby a perjurer.

It's hard for me to read this stuff, looking around at the newspapers at the problems with the economy and the war this Administration has wrought, knowing McClellan for all his belated honesty and analysis is likely doing just fine financially - not only from his cushy job as White House spokesperson, but also from his book deal. But another part of me sees that he was, like many Americans, duped by this Administration. Should he have seen the signs? The answer is: Possibly. Maybe even probably, but many of us didn't either. (Personally, I wasn't ever in support of the Bush Administration, but many fine, upstanding, intelligent and intellectual friends of mine were...)

Still, it makes for compelling reading and the book maintains a decent pace; it slows a bit just past the halfway mark, but I didn't half wonder if that's because we already know the story, we already know how it ends. And by the mid of the book, he's done revealing his 'insider' knowledge and reverts to speculation. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of speculation. Between the punditry, and the news media, and the weekend political shows, I've had my fill of what people "think"; what I want to know is what are they doing to *do* about it. Scott offers few answers here, but it was heartening, if empty, to see he was willing to testify before the Senate - even if he essentially said, well, nothing.

This book isn't Earth-shattering, but it did give me a lot of insight into how the mind of George W. Bush works; there was a time where I thought that might be of little value. But as it seems the man is unlikely to be impeached, and will leave office fairly unscathed except in reputation, I think differently now. I want to know what he thinks and how he thinks, so that in judging future candidates if I see a similar pattern I can avoid it like the plague and spare this country unnecessary grief and suffering. ...more

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Jul 08, 2008 Samantha rated it really liked it

I had heard so much about this book, but it was taking its time making it up to the top of my stack. I found it fascinating to walk through the recent events from Scott McClellan's eyes. To find out what he said he knew when he said he knew it. To hear what he believes about each of the participants in the events. It was interesting to me to see how he views President Bush now compared to how he viewed him before going to Washington with him. His comments on Dr. Condi Rice were really enlighteni ...more

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Jul 13, 2008 Rachel rated it did not like it

It seriously takes a crappy book for me to not finish a book (I like to finish a book no matter how difficult it is to get through.) Now, the preface in this book is fantastic. It got me all rowled up. (Is that the right word: rowled?) I thought this book would be very interesting, and I guess a little part of it was. I wanted to get the scoop from a true insider. Someone who really was in the thick of it all. The problem with this book is when he blabs on and on about idealistic politics, his f ...more

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Sep 14, 2016 Tony61 rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook, history, nonfiction

A textbook for how not to be president.

If you are ever pitying yourself because of your crappy job or because you work with a bunch of loathsome sociopaths, Scott McClellan’s book will likely make you feel better about your own situation. Few jobs could be worse than being George W. Bush’s Press Secretary, defending inanely counter-productive policies and wars of an imbecile president, and lorded over by cynical, self-serving liars like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

What Happened is a journalistic m ...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Diane Kistner rated it it was amazing

Okay, we all bought this book to find out if someone who's been on the inside of the big opaque white box would confirm what we all suspected, or give us someone to tar and feather if we're prone to unquestioning partisan loyalties. Although there is some 3-star unevenness early in the book, I have to say the best part is the final chapter, "Changing the Culture of Deception," and that alone is what earns my 5-star review.

Most of the book is a narrative of Scott McClellan's schooling in politics Okay, we all bought this book to find out if someone who's been on the inside of the big opaque white box would confirm what we all suspected, or give us someone to tar and feather if we're prone to unquestioning partisan loyalties. Although there is some 3-star unevenness early in the book, I have to say the best part is the final chapter, "Changing the Culture of Deception," and that alone is what earns my 5-star review.

Most of the book is a narrative of Scott McClellan's schooling in politics at his mother's knee and how he wound up being an inner-circle Bush loyalist, dedicated to what he thought were the high ideals of principled people dedicated to public service--only to be blindsided and thrown under the bus in a cruel, expedient way. We saw it on his face at the time, and now we get the backstory: the man's heart was chewed up and spit out like a chaw of Texas tobacco, yet still to the very end he finds it within himself to give Bush the benefit of the doubt and to do what he felt was best for the larger good.

In the final chapter, though, we get the benefit of McClellan's hindsight and his in-depth reflections on how he believes we can transmute what happened into positive change and good governance--or what can happen next. This is a beautifully written, wise chapter. As I was reading it, I kept thinking "Barack Obama, I hope you are reading this. John McCain, I hope you are reading this. Leaders of Congress and The Media, I hope you are reading this. My fellow Americans, who love this country as much as I do and dare hope it's not too late to avoid our irreparable decline and death as a nation, I hope you are reading this."

Please buy or borrow this book before the November elections and read the final chapter, even if you don't read the rest of the book. Then go to the polls and vote for the presidential, Congressional, and state-level candidates that you have assessed are most likely to try to rise to the challenge McClellan has thrown out to all of us. If you do, maybe there is hope for America after all.

The Kindle edition, by the way, is well-formatted and readable. I feel compelled to mention this because some Kindle editions of books I've bought have had formatting problems that made them hard to read. ...more

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Jul 01, 2008 Ray rated it liked it · review of another edition

There are plenty of books out there critical of Bush and his adminstration [ e.g., books like Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", or Corn's & Isikoffs "Hubris", Hersh's "Chain of Command", Rick's "Fiasco", Unger's "House of Bush, House of Saud", Woodward" "Bush at War", "Plan of Attack", or "State of Denial", Suskind's "The Price of Loyalty", etc.] It's not really true, but one might dismiss them as being written by liberal Democrats or political outsiders. Harder to dismiss ar There are plenty of books out there critical of Bush and his adminstration [ e.g., books like Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", or Corn's & Isikoffs "Hubris", Hersh's "Chain of Command", Rick's "Fiasco", Unger's "House of Bush, House of Saud", Woodward" "Bush at War", "Plan of Attack", or "State of Denial", Suskind's "The Price of Loyalty", etc.] It's not really true, but one might dismiss them as being written by liberal Democrats or political outsiders. Harder to dismiss are those written by ex members of the Bush team, like former EPA Administrators Christine Todd Whitman's book "It's My Party", former terrorism advisor Richard Clark's book, former CIA head George Tenant's book, etc.]. Here's another ex-Bush insider who is saying the same thing - Bush didn't do a very good job overall. I believe it was the same Scott McClellan who dismissed some of these earlier books as "sour grapes", or just someone trying to make a buck once outside the administration, it's amusing that the same is being said of him and his book.
But repeated enough times by many former insiders, you have to start believing the common theme. McClellan's book actually is the kindest of Bush of them all in my opinion. He doesn't seem to be condemning Bush as much as the way politics is played, especially in Washington. McClellan seems to give Bush the benefit of the doubt in many areas, and still believes he's a decent caring man. Instead, he blames the policical atmosphere in general, and the likes of Rove, Cheney, and other key advisors for the problems in the current administration. My impression, by the time I finished the book, was there really wasn't much new here, and McClellan's main gripe was personal, e.g., he was misled by Rove, Libby, and others about who leaked inside information about a CIA agent to the press for political reasons, and ended up being caught himself in an inadvertent lie to the press. My feeling is that he simply wanted to get his side of the story out there, clear his name, and not specifically to bash Bush any more than has already been done.
...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Caroline rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Politicos (My People)

So exciting! I normally read the conservatives at the library, so my consumer dollars won't fund their destruction of my country - that should tell you which side I'm coming from. This one, I BOUGHT! I make this offer to any Bushie who wants to roll over and tell the truth - I will buy your book! (David Kuo, I will grandfather you in)

Mr. McClellan started off kinda rocky; he gives us a background story about difficulties he experienced as head of his fraternity... and cites these as a lesson tha ...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Maria Andreu rated it it was ok

Forget how smug he was at press briefings. Forget how he was a puppet and mouthpiece for all the bad decisions of the Bush administration. For me, these are givens, like saying a croissant tastes nice or summer is pleasant.

McClellan doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know - not really - in spirit if not in detail.

But what really annoys me about this book is that an editor somewhere let it go out in such bad condition? I get the man's not a writer, but jeez. You'd figure a press secretary ...more

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Jun 06, 2016 Mahlia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, politics, favorites

Definitely a well-written and insightful book. It makes you see what went wrong during the Bush presidency from the standpoint of someone who was there the entire time and witnessing the decisions as the president made them. I found it to be a great read and enjoyed every page.

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Jan 07, 2011 Connie rated it did not like it

Shelves: couldn-t_finish

I put this book in the Goodwill box yesterday with out finishing it. Scott's finger pointing, I'm so innocent spiel was just pissing me off.

Hey Scott - no one believes you. ...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Scott Rhee rated it liked it

Shelves: politics, memoir

It's an election year, and one that promises to be very interesting, to say the least. In preparation, I've resurrected and, in some cases, polished some of my book reviews dealing with politics in general. I read this book back in 2012. My views on Bush/Cheney have not changed. In some ways, they are less vitriolic, but with each new bit of news that surfaces that reveals how corrupt Bush/Cheney truly were, my disgust for them continues to grow.

Scott McClellan was Deputy White House Press Secre ...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Ryan rated it liked it

Shelves: politics

Oh, Scotty boy.

The book he wrote was ABOUT interesting things, and that's why it's got three stars. I also appreciated his general handling of Iraq - it made me think about the whole long-term implications of the region slightly differently. The writing style was mediocre. He tries to be a somewhat dispassionate narrator, but ends up just being mostly boring. I listened to it on audiobook, and Scott himself narrated it. His vocal style is very George W. Bush-esque, and that got a little grating Oh, Scotty boy.

The book he wrote was ABOUT interesting things, and that's why it's got three stars. I also appreciated his general handling of Iraq - it made me think about the whole long-term implications of the region slightly differently. The writing style was mediocre. He tries to be a somewhat dispassionate narrator, but ends up just being mostly boring. I listened to it on audiobook, and Scott himself narrated it. His vocal style is very George W. Bush-esque, and that got a little grating.

But I think the main issue I had was the content. Scott tries to paint Bush as this bipartisan, honest Texas governor who got to the White House pledging to root out the political way DC runs, and was taken down by his advisers, some personality quirks, and the 'permanent campaign' of the Bush White House, Congress, and the press, who likes to 'pick on people.'

First - I'll trust Molly Ivans' interpretation of Governor Dubya over your wool-covered eyes, Scott. Bush was a horrible governor, who didn't have to do much, and what he did do, he made worse. Trying to whitewash him as this great leader is a convenient trope that allows you to set yourself up as a betrayed non-prodigal son later in the book. There's a reason more people voted for (then) boring old Al Gore than your amazing boss - he was awful then, and he was awful as President.

Second - DC takes many queues from how the White House is run. And how the people who work there interact with the press and the national constituency. You were part of that, and while you take some responsibility, there was nothing keeping you from speaking up at the meetings you say you felt you had to remain silent at, or going to the press back then.

Also - the national press's major fault is trying to find conflict in issues where there might not actually be conflict, because they want interesting stories. They weren't just trying to 'pick on' you - your actions, and the actions of the White House you took flak for, were actually that bad. It wasn't unfair bullying. There was just so much the WH had to answer for, and the press was treated with such disdain, that I'm sure it started to feel one sided. Most of the time I would wonder why they weren't hitting you more often.

But you get three stars because it was an interesting peek partially behind the curtain of the west wing and because it was novel to get your perspectives on White House machinations in a somewhat honest fashion. Most Bush aides never seem to tire of repeating their same old talking points, and while you were guilty of this as press secretary, you at least seem to try to come to terms with the Bush years with something approaching honestly and self-reflection. ...more

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Jun 14, 2009 Susan rated it really liked it

I was surprised by how much I liked this book. I heard about it on the Diane Rehm show, then found it on the "new" shelf in the library. I expected just a "here's what happened around me" kind of book, but it was much more than that.

Mostly I was surprised that McClellan really had a point; namely, that what's wrong in Washington is the culture of permanent campaigning. He argues that elected officials used to use campaign tactics to get elected, then got on with the business of actually making d ...more

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Dec 01, 2007 Tom rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: nobody

I am NO fan of Bush, and was mildly interested to see what McClellan has to say (even though I distrust presidential turncoats) about possibly the worst president in history.

This is a terribly written book with disjointed rhythm. I've read better written stuff on bathroom walls. Considering that McClellan was not thought of well by the press corps or the public like Ari Fleischer was, he seems to think he did a wonderful job. Plus, for a book that is supposed to be an insider's view of the Bush ...more

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Jun 25, 2008 Scott rated it really liked it

For some reason I am fascinated by reading first-hand accounts of what happened behind the scenes in recent U.S. Presidential administrations. I am particularly fascinated with reading about the George W. Bush administration and how they have become so out of touch with reality. McClellan's account was fascinating to me. As someone who thinks George W. Bush beats out only Andrew Johnson in a contest to be a good president, it was interesting to learn from a true insider how decisions were made a ...more

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Aug 09, 2017 Diana Long rated it it was amazing

The author offers some biographical information on his background and family history so the reader gets more a sense of who he is, where he's been and then proceeds to the time he spent being the Press Secretary from 2003-2006 serving the 43rd President of the United States George W. Bush. I thought it was a thoroughly engaging read, not a position for just anyone, nor did I feel the work was vindictive or meant to cause excess criticism, rather a reflection on what the position details and the ...more

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Jul 27, 2008 Lisa rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: absolutely NO ONE!

Shelves: non-fiction

This was a hard one to put into the non-fiction category.

To summarize:
Pure drivel or more accurately pure partisan drivel that lays the responsibility of the Bush administration's lies and deceptions at the feet of the press.

The most honest paragraph in the entire book, “President Bush has always been an instinctive leader more than an intellectual leader. He is not one to delve deeply into all the possible policy options-including sitting around engaging in extended debate about them-before ma ...more

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Jul 15, 2009 Maureen rated it liked it

A simple education on the day-to-day of the White House Administration. And a first-hand account of the deception and politicking of the Bush team. The writing follows McClellan's jumpy thought patterns, but he gets his message across nonetheless. (Although at times it's by pure use of redundancy.) I couldn't shake thinking how the staff in the White House "bubble" could continue to be so clueless for so many years. Not a stellar piece of work, but I found it interesting to be privvy to McClella ...more

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Jun 09, 2008 Laura rated it really liked it

Did I like it because it completely vindicated all that we thought we knew already about Bush and Co., with the added deliciousness of having been written by a Bush insider? Yes, to a large extent. Nothing like seeing the bad guys getting called out by one of their own. In the end, I found McClellan to be a pretty sympathetic character, and his explanation of how he went from devout apologist to reluctant Cassandra, believable. Better late than not at all.

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Jul 03, 2008 Randy added it

This is a very important book to read in our current cultural meltdown. We have lived in a political climate of lies--crimes--and cutural/political deception the likes of which are rarely seen except in volitle third-world countries.

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Oct 05, 2008 Judy rated it really liked it

Shelves: borrowed

This book takes a good hard look at what is termed the "permanent campaign" and the impact such politicalization of decision-making has had on important issues. Scott is frank about the difficult position of promoting the viewpoint of an administration that is less than open to new ideas. ...more

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Jul 25, 2008 Jeff Scott rated it it was ok

Shelves: overdrive-library, non-fiction

This is the book any ex-employee would love to write to exonerate himself from the sins of the organization. When that person's job is to explain and cover the mistakes of one of the nation's worst presidencies, the book gets everyone's attention.

McClellan explains his own background and what led him to work for the president. It's good to get perspective, but the explanation of the 2000 election until he became press secretary could have been shortened as it isn't revealing and that ground was ...more

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Oct 23, 2008 Mazola1 rated it it was ok

Scott McClellan's book "What Happened" is an insider's attempt to explain just how the Bush Administration got so badly off track after a promising start. "What happened?" is, of course, the classic question a person asks after having been blindsided. In large part, it is obvious that this is exactly how McClellan felt after his term of service in the Bush White House was over -- abused and disheartened, puzzled and angry at how things could have gone so wrong, for both himself and the Administr Scott McClellan's book "What Happened" is an insider's attempt to explain just how the Bush Administration got so badly off track after a promising start. "What happened?" is, of course, the classic question a person asks after having been blindsided. In large part, it is obvious that this is exactly how McClellan felt after his term of service in the Bush White House was over -- abused and disheartened, puzzled and angry at how things could have gone so wrong, for both himself and the Administration he believed in.

McClellan started working for Bush when he was the Governor of Texas, and followed him to Washington when Bush was elected President in 2000. He severed nearly three years as President Bush's press secretary, an oftentimes thankless task. His tenure as press secretary covered contentious times, including the controversies over the flawed intelligence leading up to the Iraq war and the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

McClellan is certainly a disaffected former Bush loyalist, and is obviously still bitter that Karl Rove, Bush's celebrated "brain," and Scooter Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, lied to him about their roles in the Plame scandal, and basically hung him out to dry. McClellan writes that when it became known that he had falsely told the press that Rove and Libby were not involved in leaking Plame's identity, the press reaction was "about as negative and biting" as could be. He felt his reputation "crumbling away, bit by bit." McClellan's pain at his damaged credibility, as well as at Bush's squandered promise, infuse the entire book. However, his book is still thoughtful and well reasoned, and seems to have been written more in sorrow than in anger.

That having been said, the concept of the book is better than its execution. The writing is mundane, boring at times, and frequently choppy. As political memoirs go, this one is relatively low key and even dry, the intense press reaction to it notwithstanding. It contains no startling revelations, unless the story of how a life-long Bush loyalist became a very public critic of Bush counts as one.

McClellan left the White House with his credibility in tatters due to the lies of others, having basically been fired after more than two years of loyal and difficult service as press secretary. Upon leaving the White House for the last time, his reaction was that "after more than five years of living inside the bubble of a presidency once filled with so much promise and now woefully off course, little seemed completely clear to me. I was still wondering what happened."

Although it isn't entirely clear, it seems that what McClellan believes happened is that Bush was undone by his own "unconscious acquiescence and, at times, enabling of deception." McClellan does have some interesting insights into the Washington scene and Bush and his administration. These center around what he calls the permanent campaign, and the "bubble of the White House." These factors led to the inability, or unwillingness, of the Bush Administration to be entirely candid with the American people, in particular about the Iraq war.

McClellan says that although he doesn't believe the Bush Administration consciously lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, it was not blameless in the way it handled intelligence in the pre-war period. According to him, "the campaign mentality at times led the president and his chief advisors to spin, hide, shade, and exaggerate the truth, obscuring nuances and ignoring the caveats that should have accompanied their arguments. Rather than choosing to be forthright and candid, they chose to sell the war, and in so doing they did a disservice to the American people and to our democracy."

He concludes that "the decision to invade Iraq, more than anything else, took the Bush presidency off course, and our excessive embrace of the political tactics at the heart of Washingon's culture of deception kept it there. When candor could have helped to minimze the political fallout from the unraveling of the chief rationale for war, spin and evasion were instead what we employed."

Some of McClellan's harshest criticism concerns Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice: "This kind of special treatment undermines our system of justice....I believe in the rule of law, and I think a president and those who serve a president have a special obligation to live up to both the letter and the spirit of the law. President Bush certainly has the right and the power to commute Libby's entence. But in choosing to do so, he sent an unfortunate message to America and to the world -- that in the United States criminal behavior on behalf of a political cause may go unpunished if those who support that cause have the power to make it happen. Those in power have access to a different system of justice....I think it's unfortunate that the partisan, winner-take-all mentality of the permanent campaign has come to exert so much influence over the way our nation is governed. Intervening to circumvent a legally sound and morally just verdict because the defendant happens to be politally connected may be asympton of just such a deplorable trend."

If it is true that criticisms written by one's friends are more stinging and more accurate than those penned by one's enemies, then What Happened contains many stinging and accurate criticisms of George Bush's flawed presidency. ...more

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Mar 11, 2017 Claudia Putnam rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, memoir

If I'd read this THEN, I'd have rated it lower, but actually, it ages well, and seems much more relevant now. I had to listen through the boring stuff about McClellan's background and good-faith belief in Bush and "the agenda," but if you get the book in print or e-, you can skim all that. Drawing on his time as a senior communications officer in the Bush White House, wherein he shaped messaging and communications strategy, in retrospect McClellan is able to offer insight into how the Bush team If I'd read this THEN, I'd have rated it lower, but actually, it ages well, and seems much more relevant now. I had to listen through the boring stuff about McClellan's background and good-faith belief in Bush and "the agenda," but if you get the book in print or e-, you can skim all that. Drawing on his time as a senior communications officer in the Bush White House, wherein he shaped messaging and communications strategy, in retrospect McClellan is able to offer insight into how the Bush team changed the way the White House has related to the press and the public ever since. Main takeaways:

*The culture of permanent campaign--started who knows when, but according to SM coming fully into play during the Clinton Administration changed how the White House operated once Bush came to power. So that although Bush had been a moderate Republican in Texas and had governed to the center (which SM acknowledges Clinton had also done, a strategy that had saved his presidency post-impeachment--thus weakening his argument that it was the Clinton admin that had brought the permanent campaign full-force into DC), the Bush/Rove constant eye on how everything was playing with the public changed how Bush governed in Washington. From day one, everything was about re-election. This meant Bush was more concerned with social policy, like abortion, than he'd been as a governor.

*It also meant that transparency was a thing of the past. Message discipline, positioning, and outright deception became core strategies when thinking about how to "sell" policies to the public.

*The media tended to play into all this by covering controversy rather than policy and substance. For example, on the Iraq war, the media played right into the Bush team's hands. The idea was to sell the war to the public. Instead of digging into *the assertions* Bush & Co made about *the necessity* of the war, the media, with rare exceptions, mostly covered the controversy over going to war... that is, they covered how well the Bush agenda was playing with the public. Was the war idea up or down in the polls? Sound familiar today?

*The Valerie Plame story is at the heart of the book. Reminder to those who forgot, or to those too young to even know: Valerie Plame was a CIA operative married to a State Dept employee sent to Niger to verify whether radioactive materials were in fact linked to Iraq--ie, whether Iraq might indeed be developing the capacity for "weapons of mass destruction," the pretext for invading Iraq. Wilson, Plame's husband, wrote that he had found nothing. In retaliation for making his findings public, Karl Rove exposed Plame's cover as a spy to a couple of journalists, who published this information. Revealing the identity of an undercover operative is a felony, not to mention just evil, and certainly the kind of thing you'd get mad about if you were mad about things like Benghazi. McClellan then publicly denied that Rove had done this, after Rove swore it wasn't him, embarrassing McClellan for all time. So this business of lying really bothered McClellan. He saw it as part of the legacy of Watergate, and also saw it as a failure of the Bush Administration to learn from that legacy--that you need to get things out in the open as soon as possible, or else they snowball and you get in worse trouble, which is What Happened.

There's more in the book, including the fuck ups around Katrina, but the things to think about for where we are now have to do with the permanent campaign. Obama was less truculent with the press than Bush was (remember how the Bush Admin wanted it to be treasonous to criticize the President during wartime?). But he was also very secretive. Not deceptive, just not forthcoming at all. He was hard to get hold of. He didn't have press conferences. There was the Underwear Bomber, and Obama didn't even have a press conference. He didn't talk about the drone strikes even when they took out major terrorists. He just didn't say much at all.

Trump registered as running for re-election pretty much as soon as he took office. He's campaigning already. That's what all those tweets are about. That's what the wall and the EOs are all about. The Muslim Ban. He doesn't care if it makes any sense. He's just shooting off his mouth the same old way because it plays well with the people who vote for him. He won't stop, I promise you. It's all campaign. It's totally working.

And the media cover every little bit of what he says, at the expense of covering what Congress is up to, at the expense of digging into the details and getting into the merits of things. They look at how things are playing. They cover the show, not the substance.

If you're interested in patterns, you might be interested in this book. What we're seeing is bigger and messier, but it's not new.

...more

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Nov 26, 2008 Drew rated it it was ok

Shelves: politics

I finished reading Scott McClellan’s memoir: What Happened: Inside the Bush White and Washington’s Culture of Deception. This is my first political memoir of a recent event. Normally, I’d pick up a book written many years after the fact, letting distance provide some context. But, I just had to have this book as McClellan worked the media and blog circuit. As you may know, he was a loyal Bush supporter and fellow Texan who served as White House Press Secretary from July 2003 until April 2006.

The I finished reading Scott McClellan’s memoir: What Happened: Inside the Bush White and Washington’s Culture of Deception. This is my first political memoir of a recent event. Normally, I’d pick up a book written many years after the fact, letting distance provide some context. But, I just had to have this book as McClellan worked the media and blog circuit. As you may know, he was a loyal Bush supporter and fellow Texan who served as White House Press Secretary from July 2003 until April 2006.

The memoir focuses primarily on the selling and secrecy around the Iraq War and the outing of a CIA agent as payback for challenging the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) claim for the war. It touches ever so briefly on the political effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Bush presidency.

There are a few tidbits that McClellan confirms. Bush decided to go to war with Iraq by November 2001 (p. 127). However, McClellan says that the war was right, but that it was marketed wrong, emphasizing WMD instead of spreading freedom. This revisionism is expected from loyal Bush folks, but it seems weird coming from a person who is persona non grata these days in Republican circles. He said Bush’s primary failing was not admitting that WMD’s weren’t the real reason for Iraq War. With respect to Katrina, he blames state and local officials, and Karl Rove, for any failings in the government’s reaction to one of its worst natural disasters. Also, Karl Rove is definitely fingered as someone who exposed Valerie Plame’s CIA cover, in an attempt to discredit her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson.

The main points I took away from this book are:

* McClellan portrays himself as a do-gooder who can do no wrong. He’s smitten with the President and never stabs him in the back, or front, during his tenure or in this book.
* It’s never McClellan’s fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. He is always doing the best he can. For anything bad that happened, he says that he was deceived, lied to, kept in the dark, or manipulated by dark foes (pp. 124, 138, 146, 153, 155, 163, 259, 297).
* Republicans are portrayed as being misunderstood, while Democrats are often wrong from the get-go. He blames the “system” constantly, but never blames individuals for making the system into what it is today. My personal thoughts are that the partisanship of the Republican leaders of the House during the 1990s led to the extreme partisanship we see in the White House today.
* McClellan says that while Bush won in 2004, the narrowness of the win “supplied no real mandate” (p. 252). Bush and Cheney would never say this, claiming they had a mandate to do whatever they wanted, especially after November 2004.
* His blame summation: Rove was bad. Libby was bad. Cheney was secretive. Bush was misled. Scott McClellan was lied to (p. 306).

McClellan also appears to have some serious masculinity hang-ups. He constantly uses parenthetical asides to assert that he truly is a manly-man. Talking to his mom, discussing stuff with his wife and being beaten up by his older brothers are addressed with unnecessary machismo (pp. 103, 112, 26). Additionally, when offering up his thinly-sketched fix for partisanship, he says that “for the rest of this chapter, I’ll refer to the hypothetical leaders of tomorrow simply as ‘he,’ to avoid the awkwardness of saying ‘he or she’ repeatedly. No disrespect is intended to any current or future national leaders of the female gender” (p. 314) What the heck is that? He then spends the next 9 1/3 pages saying he over and over again. Why not alternate? Why choose he over she? I’m sorry, it’s much more awkward to erase the contributions (past, current or future) of women in the leadership ranks of our government.

Clocking in at 323 pages, this book went on way to long. It could have been cut down to 100-150 pages and still gotten across its points. Was it a good read? Not necessarily. It certainly didn’t fit the bill as something that would alienate Republicans and rally Democrats. ...more

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May 08, 2012 Mirkat rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Having listened to this as an audio book, I will note that this is an instance where someone really should have convinced the author not to narrate his own book. For some reason, McClellan affects a stilted "reading" pronunciation. Most notably, he reads the article "a" like the letter "a" and does the same thing to every word that starts with an "a" ("about" comes out as "ay-bout," for example). This man needs an infusion of schwas! Out of curiosity, I listened to an NPR interview clip to see w Having listened to this as an audio book, I will note that this is an instance where someone really should have convinced the author not to narrate his own book. For some reason, McClellan affects a stilted "reading" pronunciation. Most notably, he reads the article "a" like the letter "a" and does the same thing to every word that starts with an "a" ("about" comes out as "ay-bout," for example). This man needs an infusion of schwas! Out of curiosity, I listened to an NPR interview clip to see whether he pronounces his words that way conversationally, and he does not. It surprises me that someone who spoke publicly on a regular basis, as White House (or "why-douse" in McClellan-speak) Press Secretary, would read in such a stilted way. In any event, a professional narrator or voice actor would have been a much better choice.

As for the content, I often found myself surprised when McClellan reported the shock and dismay he felt when he realized certain prominent members of the Bush administration had lied to him. It's difficult to believe he was ever so credulous, but it seems that he was a true believer, who uttered phrases such as "compassionate conservative" and "uniter, not a divider" without a shade of irony. Much of what he reports about the inner workings of the "why-douse" are not especially surprising, but I admit I was curious. One of McClellan's central themes is that the Bush adminstration fell prey to the practice of being in "permanent campaign" mode, using those
techniques not only for campaigning but also for governing. I couldn't help rolling my eyes whenever he blamed the Clinton administration for setting the "permanent campaign" tone in the first place, though at least he does allow that Bush et. al. took it to new depths.

His final section is about how to fix the problems he outlines in the book. It strikes me as naive that he believes creating a "Deputy Chief of Staff for Governing" position would usher in a new era of openness and transparency. Also, his contention that all administrations need to enlist centrists from both parties reveals more about McClellan's own political proclivities than anything else.

If you are curious about "what happened" behind the scenes in the Bush administration during McClellan's tenure, by all means check this book out from your library. I'd recommend against the audio book, because of the distracting narration, and I'd also recommend against spending money on this narrative. ...more

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May 28, 2008 Karen rated it liked it

As we all know, the author was the pompous, self-righteous press secretary for President Bush after Ari Fleischer left the post, a man always defending the indefensible. Yet, as a member of Bush's Texas inner sanctum, his endorsement of Barack Obama last year indicated he had a story to tell and left the White House with his political ideals shaken.

The book was slow going at first, while Mr. McClellan gave endless details of his youth, setting the stage for why he's a man of impeccable integrity As we all know, the author was the pompous, self-righteous press secretary for President Bush after Ari Fleischer left the post, a man always defending the indefensible. Yet, as a member of Bush's Texas inner sanctum, his endorsement of Barack Obama last year indicated he had a story to tell and left the White House with his political ideals shaken.

The book was slow going at first, while Mr. McClellan gave endless details of his youth, setting the stage for why he's a man of impeccable integrity and the poster child for the most conservative of GOP movements. The recounting of his reaction to a hazing incident at University of Texas was particularly self-serving - McClellan's "proof" that his true character stands up for truth and honor even against popular opinion.

But persevere and you will be rewarded. This book reveals very little new information about the Bush Administration - for those of us well informed on Bush's past and character, everything unfolded as expected. The value here is to have everything verified by this inner source....the dawning realization by Mr. McClellan that he was mouthpiece for a repugnant, corrupt administration (Rove, Cheney, Libby) and his shock during conversations with Bush that indicated this man, his president, truly didn't understand what he was doing.

Most telling was Bush's incomprehension as the WMD lie fell apart - he asked the author why did Americans care why we went in there when all that really mattered was that we were bringing freedom to Iraq? McClellan's observations about Condeleeza Rice are also fascinating and answered my own lingering questions about why she's seemingly so removed from the administration's wrongdoings.

I particularly appreciated his viewpoint on the perpetual campaign run by the Bush crew - where actual understanding of events didn't matter and actual steps taken were brushed under the rug, while the marketing of the philosophy to the American people got center stage. The entire eight years was smoke and mirrors and I appreciated McClellan's admission of this fact.

I'd give this one 3.5 stars if I could. As a "tell all," it's pretty good.

...more

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