Posted on 06/02/2008 7:43:36 PM PDT by neverdem
If you want to read a serious book about the intervention in Iraq, look to Douglas Feith.
When Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill defected from the Cabinet in 2002 and Ron Suskind told O'Neill's story of being surrounded by fools, Michael Kinsley observed that the president deserved all he got from the book. Anyone dumb enough to hire a fool like O'Neill in the first place ought to have known what to expect. So it goes with the ludicrous figure of Scott McClellan. I used to watch this mooncalf blunder his way through press conferences and think, Exactly where do we find such men? For the job of swabbing out the White House stables, yes. But for any task involving the weighing of words? Hah! Now it seems that he realizes, and with a shock at that, that there was a certain amount of "spin" or propaganda involved in his job description. Well, give the man a cigar. Beyond that, the book is effectively valueless to the anti-war camp since, as McClellan says of the president, "I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people."
Bertrand Russell's principle of evidence against interest—if the pope has doubts about Jesus, his doubts are by definition more newsworthy than the next person's—doesn't really justify the ocean of coverage in which the talentless McClellan is currently so far out of his depth. For one thing, he doesn't supply anything that can really be called evidence. For another, having not noticed any "propaganda machine" at the time he was perspiring his way through his simple job, he has a clear mercenary interest in discovering one in retrospect.
If you want to read a serious book about the origins...
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Mooncalf?
What is that?
Hitchen’s may make my teeth grind at times, but the man can write. At his worst, he is still one of the better writers around.
A young Moonbat? I would think though that "Moonling" is more fitting.
Here’s the thing about Scott.
“press secretary in July 2003 and served until replaced by Tony Snow on April 26, 2006”
During that time period is when everything went south for Bush. It’s not a coincidence. Scott was terrible.
Mooncalf?
John O’Sullivan comes to mind as well.
Hitchen’s review of Feith’s book alone will cause liberal heads to explode.
Very traditional disparaging term.
I always thought it meant an incredibly naive person, but apparently it had more sinister meanings.
http://www.answers.com/topic/mooncalf
What the Valley Girls would now describe as a 'tard.
Bush’s “new tone” sure worked out well.
I'm ordering Douglas Feith's book tonight.
And whatever the heck a "mooncalf" is, the word describes Scott McClellan perfectly.
Ironically, McClellan was claiming on O’Reilly tonight that he wrote this book to try to put an end to the divisiveness in D.C. Isn’t he noble? He was saying that it was wrong for the Bush administration to be in permanent campaign mode. Hellooooo ....the Democrats would rather ruin our economy and lose a war to terrorists than let a Republican get any credit for anything.
Besides McClellan can’t possibly even fool himself that his stupid little book will change a thing in Washington.
a mass of fleshy matter
lol
Thanks
Hitchens at his excellent bluntness, as usual.
The book he recommends sounds fascinating. And he is right, few, including me, have even heard of it yet.
I would say a push to acquire Feith’s book is in order.
I caught a few minutes of it. He was as pathetic as before.
McClellan is a focus point of 2 glaring mistakes by Bush Administration: neglect of communications and preference of loyalty above competence.
Thanks for posting.
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