The MSM has thus far offered two speculative explanations for former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s recent book critical of the Bush administration’s war against Iraq. The “liberal” line seems to be that McClellan has had a fit of conscience and wants to do the “right thing” by making insider revelations. The “conservative” side wants to paint the man as a “disgruntled” former empployee with an undisclosed axe to grind.
I have yet to hear anyone offer the possible explanation that McClellan is bright enough to see that the neocon-dominated White House and GOP are in a state of free-fall, with reputations collapsing in the process. The man may, in other words, only be trying to salvage what may remain of his chances for future employment in the marketplace, or to salvage whatever remnants may remain of his good-name. One saw a similar response in Robert McNamara’s published mea culpa for his responibility for the slaughter he helped to mastermind in Vietnam.
I do not buy Mr. McClellan’s plea of innocence regarding the nature of the White House manipulations of both truth and the minds of Americans, whose job it was this man’s to carry out. Millions of honest and thoughtful Americans saw through the fraud being perpetrated upon the world with his assistance, and he is certainly bright enough to have been able to see what the rest of us saw, had he chosen to look at the time. I agree with his suggestion that the MSM failed to perform its function, but he – as the official White House communicator of lies and deception – is hardly the man to make the point.
I believe that wrongdoers should experience adverse consequences for their wicked deeds. None of the culprits in these immoral undertakings are likely to face any civil or criminal penalties for their actions, making the formal legal system their protector. But the marketplace provides at least a partial remedy. Through ostracism, boycotts, and other refusals to deal with such people, they can at least suffer the consequences of being unable to profit from future employment or royalties earned from the publication of books detailing their involvement in such wrongs. If decent people refused to hire such wrongdoers or to buy their books, the marketplace could effectively render an adverse judgment on their economic and reputational interests. The unwillingess of tens of thousands of men and women to buy O.J. Simpson’s book offers a working example.
