I have relegated Scott McLellan to the weekend because that is when most soft news stories take place. If I was not so busy at a serious policy conference discussing Islamofacism and other issues that actually matter, I would not have banged out such a quick column on pure fluff.
Scott McLellan may or may not be more relevant than Paris Hilton, who I mention solely to generate more hits for my blog. Also, some bimbo readers might accidentally stumble upon this column and learn something with substance. For that reason, Scott McLellan matters as much as Anna Nicole Smith.
I have not read his book. I will not read his book. There is no reason to do this. People who claim I am closeminded are the same people who suggest I look at books denying the Holocaust to hear other points of view. I do not need to read idiocy to know about it.
So why would Scott McLellan write a book lambasting President Bush?
He did this because he is an insignificant man desperate for some recognition. He is a failed bureaucrat looking to be liked. He suffers from Arianna Huffington Syndrome.
Huffington Syndrome is when one matters to nobody, and desperately wants to be liked. In high society, this means becoming a liberal.
Arianna Huffington was known in the 1990s as a right wing person who people knew because she was married to somebody who mattered, at least somewhat. Other than that, people knew her as somebody whose husband left her, announced he was gay, and left her to speak about elitist theories in a funny accent. This is not a criticism, just a recitation.
Some will say that McLellan is merely being “principled.”
In elite circles, being principled is code for being liberal. Another euphemism is to say that a President has “grown” in the job. Liberals praise former President Bush, forgetting how they used to excoriate him. He is simply seen as liberal compared to his son. If the current President Bush wants to be remembered fondly, he should be succeeded by somebody even more conservative than he is, so he can look good by comparison.
When Chuck Hagel, a republican, crosses party lines to condemn a war, he is seen as principled, courageous, and heroic. When Joseph Lieberman, a democrat, crosses party lines to support a war, he is lacerated.
Try finding an article in the Jayson Blair Times praising Lieberman for his war stance.
Principled people do not sit by and put their own self interest above doing what is right. If your boss asks you to do something illegal, you resign. That is called honor. Even the military, where the chain of command is sacred, values integrity more. Officers have the obligation to disobey illegal orders from their superiors.
Scott McLellan enjoyed the proximity to power, as many people do. He was somebody, almost. He was always seen as a fairly incompetent press secretary, sandwiched by far superior talent before and after him in the forms of Ari Fleischer and Dana Perino. I have met and spoken with both of them. They are competent and capable. McLellan was neither. Those who ask how I can come to that conclusion without meeting him are the same people that criticize President Bush because he fractures his syntax.
McLellan’s assertions are simply what the left wants to hear.
The left does not care about evidence. They never have. President Bush is evil, therefore any story about him that casts him in a negative light has to be true because it fits that world view.
What the left fails to grasp is that it is theoretically possible that President Bush could have done things badly in their eyes, yet not be responsible for everything from robbing Idlewild Airport to shooting the Easter Bunny.
There are two premises that liberals reject.
The first premise, is that somewhere in this world, an atrocity or evil deed is occurring that President Bush did not support, cause, or have anything to do with.
The second premise is that somewhere in this world, something overwhelmingly positive is occurring, and President Bush is responsible for it.
Both of these premises are reasonable. They offer a possibility of something less than a black and white, all or nothing world.
Liberals who wish to flip these around on me would be disappointed. I disagreed with President Bush on steel tariffs. I simply like him on more issues than I dislike him on, by a wide margin.
I am a thinking conservative, while many liberals are “reflexive” liberals.
It is reflexive to think that Libby, Rove, Cheney and Bush outed Valerie Plame when Richard Armitage said that he did it. It is reflexive to rage about a covert agent that is not covert. She was posing in Vanity Fair (while this happened after she was outed, her pattern of behavior was always public). Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were caught lying. This is factual. Yet facts do not matter to those who are reflexive.
Those who rush to now praise McLellan with the love usually reserved for a Huffington are not even contemplating that the book could be bogus. It is anti-Bush, so it must be true.
The fact that Scott McLellan put out a tell all book trashing a republican in a society where the media throws ticker tape parades for those who do so is not even concern for pause among the reflective left.
This book was written for money and fame. It was not written out of principle. It was done for pure capitalism. I am not criticizing capitalism. I am just debunking the notion that this book is altruism.
Those that will now worship McLellan are the same people that rave about Enron even though they do not know what it is. They will scream about Halliburton even though they do not know what Halliburton actually does (those who are going to the internet to learn right now are cheating).
Scott McLellan will get his brief fame in the great tradition of Andy Warhol. His fame will disappear as soon as somebody else criticizes the President more loudly.
I could write a column tomorrow blaming President Bush for the death of my pet Iguana back in the 1980s. The Daily Kos would then sing my praises and let the world know that President Bush murder innocent animals, but only after torturing them first.
This is not about McLellan. It is about a culture of stupidity that blindly follows a line of thinking without questioning it. The left will argue that this is why we went to war. No. It is the current left that cannot possible come up with a single solitary ability to analyze my the war might possibly have just been the right thing to do.
Once a liberal rejects that assertion, and declares the war illegal and immoral they can then apply those labels to President Bush.
Once a human being has been dehumanized, every shred of that person is fair game. It is acceptable to slander his wife, rip into his daughter at her wedding, and kick his dog. All is fair in war. Conservatives are waging war against terrorists. Liberals, who hate war, are waging war against President Bush.
President Bush has been dehumanized by the left. They admit this, and say it is justified.
It is that line of thinking that led to my family members being slaughtered by the Nazis.
Yes, it absolutely does apply.
Feeding frenzies draw blood, leaving innocent victims dead.
eric