Will the Bushies Shoot the Messenger?

I thought for sure that I'd made some sort of note last November when Scott McClellan came out for air and implicated Bush in the Valerie Plame mess as a teaser for his book due out this spring. I guess maybe it was just a mental note that never made it down into hot pixels. It was undoubtedly a tease to get people talking about the former press secretary's memoir, and it was targeted directly toward drumming up sales in the new year. I recall that there was a lot of talk not to get our hopes up, that although McClellan might make a couple of strong statements, he wasn't really going to bite the hand that fed him for so many years.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, it's spring now, and McClellan's book is on its way to the retail outlets (unless it's already arrived). Apparently he took stock of what it would take to regain his credibility for any future endeavors, and he started chomping on that hand. Politico reports that McClellan's publishers are making the book available to reporters but requesting an embargo until Sunday. It was easy for them to refuse to take part in that deal when they knew they could just go buy a copy from a local bookstore that already had them on sale. While Bush himself doesn't seem get the brunt of McClellan's anger, he's got plenty to pass around elsewhere. He's not at all pleased that he was used as a patsy to get completely false information--particularly on the Plame affair--out to the press and the public. In fact, that may be the crux of the whole problem. Instead of being allowed into the inner sanctum, McClellan was just one more insignificant cog in the machine, his gullibility one more weapon in the arsenal of Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and whoever else McClellan believes were the powers behind the throne.

There's not really any content here that's terribly surprising in and of itself. What's surprising is that McClellan's saying it at all. Link through for a handful of juicy details, but even more, get ready for the floodgates to open on Bush administration tell-alls by the players of the last eight years who've suddenly realized they'd like to be respected and work again in Washington afer all. What will really be interesting is to see what kind of push back we see from the White House.