Spinners Unspun

Like everything that has come out of the Bush White House, you have to read what they don't say to realize what they are really saying. Not a single one of them said that anything Scott McClellan has written is not a true description of what he witnessed and how he helped, possibly unwittingly (if he was "out of the loop" regarding actual decisions such as those made by Cheney and Libby), to manipulate public opinion.

The best they could do is try to create the impression that they were denying the accuracy of what he has written by saying they were "puzzled" that he was telling the truth, and that such honesty was "not the Scott we knew".

Consider the following from various media sources:

From the BBC:
In response, a White House spokeswoman said Mr McClellan was "disgruntled". [Which might explain his honesty, as she thinks one needs an excuse to be honest, but does not deny what he wrote is true.] Dana Perino added: "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. [Because she had never seen him tell the truth when given a choice being truth and propaganda?] It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew." [Clearly she is hoping you will think she actually said that the Scott she knew only spoke about things he knew to be true and is not saying things that are not true, but she never said that. She is just hoping you will jump to a conclusion, just like so many people did during the lead-up to the war or in the Plame case.]

From FOX News:
"(Bush) is puzzled, and he doesn't recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years, [Confirming, rather than refuting, McClellan's claim to have inside knowledge of Bush's thinking on many matters, including why he wanted to invade Iraq.] and disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts he never came to him or anyone else on the staff," Perino told reporters aboard Air Force One. [So the President is disappointed that McClellan told the American people the truth, but perhaps not realizing that McClellan may not have understood he had been used like a tool until after he left the White House and reflected on the Libby-Rove-Cheney attack on Plame, not to mention looking back at his notes about what Bush had told him about Iraq and comparing it to what he had been told to say to the press.]

From MSNBC:
The White House responded angrily Wednesday to McClellan's confessional memoir, calling it self-serving sour grapes. [It might be self serving for him to tell the truth, as I pointed out yesterday, and he might be telling the truth because of the sour feeling he was left with when he learned that Rove and Cheney had used him to obstruct public understanding of their role in outing Valerie Plame, but otherwise this is just an example of a playground ploy used by bullies who don't have the facts on their side.]

From the Chicago Tribune:
The Bush White House, long accused by outside critics of misrepresenting the facts to make the case for war in Iraq and other matters, has launched a personal counterattack against harsh accusations of "deception" from a longtime insider who worked closely with the president. [An accurate analysis from the "World's Greatest Newspaper". Just as they did with Joe Wilson, the White House chooses to attack the person rather than what he said.] "For him to do this now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional," Fran Townsend, former head of the White House-based counterterrorism office, told CNN. [Every word of this could be true and still be consistent with every word about the Bush administration being true. After all, it is quite unprofessional for a PR flack to admit being a flack, and I don't think McClellan has been completely candid about why he decided to tell the truth at this late date.]

Maybe we will learn more tomorrow as he makes the rounds on NBC Today and MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olberman. [Comment on my own comment: That combo is too strange. What is next, Colbert's show or Rove's?]

Also from FOX News:
Rove, now a FOX News contributor, denied allegations he and Libby kept information from McClellan about Plame, [Which would be interesting if that is what was alleged, but McClellan is alleging that Rove and Libby gave information to McClellan about their relationship with the leak of Plame's identity, and that what he was given was mendacious.] adding what was reported on Politico doesn't sound like the McClellan he has known for years. Instead, Rove told FOX News' "Hannity & Colmes" it sounded more like "a liberal blogger." [Rove is hoping that his fans on FOX will think this means he is calling McClellan a liar.]

This is truly classic "Turd Blossom" behavior, attacking a straw man to create the illusion that he is contradicting what McClellan wrote.