The Christian Science Monitor May 30, 5:00 PM EDT
McClellan details culture of secrecy in Bush White House
By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Writer
WA****NGTON (AP) -- The Bush White House is known for secrecy
and strict message control, and a new book by its former press
secretary details extraordinary measures it has used to manage
what information gets out.
Keeping the chief spokesman - and thus the news media and the
public - out of the loop at times is not unheard of, but
President Bush has taken it to new lengths, Scott McClellan
writes in his insider account.
Bush told McClellan's predecessor, Ari Fleischer, that he
would purposely not tell him things at times. Then-national
security adviser Condoleezza Rice cut off Fleischer's
authority to read notes on Bush's phone conversations with
fellow world leaders. This attitude filtered to other top
advisers, who resisted filling in the press secretary,
McClellan said.
"No one charged with keeping the press and the public informed
about the workings of the government should have to play such
frustrating games," McClellan writes.
White House press secretary Dana Perino says it was his own
fault if McClellan was an outsider. "You can be as in or out
of the loop as you choose to be," she said.
Current and former White House aides, unaccustomed to someone
from their famously tight circle spilling the goods, have
reacted to McClellan's explosive - and immediately best-
selling - book by trying to discredit their old friend. In the
kind of seemingly coordinated lockstep familiar to re****ters
who have long covered the Bush White House, they have
suggested in similar language that he is betraying his former
boss for money or rewriting history to vindicate old grudges.
They also say that McClellan wasn't in the know, implying that
his account now can't be trusted.
But this line of criticism serves to sup****t the central
accusation of McClellan's book: that Bush and, on his order,
his aides value secrecy over transparency - to the detriment
of both his presidency and the public.
"The Bush administration lacked real accountability in large
part because Bush himself did not embrace openness or
government in the sun****ne," McClellan writes in "What
Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Wa****ngton's Culture
of Deception."
The ultimate loyalist who worked for Bush as Texas governor,
jumped to his presidential campaign and then followed him to
Wa****ngton when he won, McClellan came to be known as a
presidential spokesman who perfected the art of the anti-
flair.
Over nearly three years, he was super-cautious in televised
briefings, blandly repeating talking points until questioners
tired. Behind the scenes, he was a journeyman spokesman,
diligently tracking down details and keeping up good relations
with the press corps. But he never revealed cracks in the
message machine.
McClellan says his views about that machine, and his role in
it, have changed in the two years since he left. He writes
critically about what he said is Bush's distrust of and
dislike for the national media and laments a culture of
secrecy that left "a large black hole in my understanding of
what was really going on inside the administration."
Looking back to when he met with Bush in 1999 before being
hired as a senior spokesman in his gubernatorial office,
McClellan recalled the governor's expectations, most
concerning tight discipline over information. Bush told
McClellan he valued "the im****tance of staying on message" and
public statements that "were coordinated internally so that
everyone is always on the same page and there are few
surprises."
Four years later, McClellan was asked to take on the far
bigger job of White House press secretary and writes that he
had reservations. Knowing Bush's preferences, he wondered
whether he would be "privy to the real rationales behind every
im****tant administration decision" or "simply be presented
with the final product and told to sell it."
McClellan was promised all the access he needed to the
president and presidential events. But "it was clear," he
writes, that the president's definition of necessary would
"keep the press secretary on a pretty short leash." This
included being barred from key internal decision-making
discussions, National Security Council sessions and even the
daily communications meeting attended by the president, vice
president, chief of staff, political adviser, national
security adviser and counselor.
Stephen Hess, who served in the Eisenhower and Nixon
administrations and wrote the press secretary section in the
Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, said "it's like the
kids game of telephone" and doesn't serve the public well.
"The more filtered information is, the less accurate it's
likely to be," said Hess, a presidential scholar at the
Brookings Institution.
But while the Bush White House is "one of the most closed-up"
in history, he said all press secretaries struggle for
information.
Marlin Fitzwater, for instance, who was press secretary during
the Reagan and first Bush presidencies, has complained that
some officials acted as if he could not be trusted and that he
felt at times like a re****ter seeking information people
didn't want him to have.
Press secretary Mike McCurry said he lost his access to Bill
Clinton's inner circle after allegations that the president
had *** with a former White House intern and tried to cover it
up. McCurry found himself shunted aside by Clinton's lawyers
as White House aides were slapped with subpoenas to testify in
a grand jury investigation.
There have been 29 modern-day press secretaries and only a
few, such as Jody Powell under President Carter and James
Hagerty for Eisenhower, had truly extensive access, according
to Hess.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WHITE_HOUSE_SECRECY?
SITE=MABOC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-05-30-17-
00-35
--
A government, of, by, and, for: Rich, Elite, Freemasons.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the
light:
for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
The light ****neth in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not.
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be
single,
thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of
darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness!
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
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