Former Press Secretary and defector from the Bush regime Scott McClellan reviews Oliver Stone's W. on its accuracy and entertainment value. And he likes it (for the most part)!
Not that McClellan the most objective viewer, seeing as how he literally wrote the book about George the 2nd being a naive, goofy pawn for his father, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney.
But which of the White House cronies does McClellan continue to carry a grudge for, after all these years?
Hey guys, sorry we're late, did we miss anything with that whole Karl Rove interview with the New York Times? I know we were all looking forward to the day when the Fox News commentator and former Deputy Chief of Staff opened up to the world and revealed his true identity as a giant three-eyed snake with wings, but…what's that? Rove refused to answer most of the journalists questions, even over email?
Well, did he give any indication of why he would refuse to talk to the Times, other than the paper's blatant liberal bias?
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Scott McClellan's latest public service for his country – that would be writing the book What Happened – was so he could have a chance "to talk about the important truths," not "[help] the president's critics." Which, uh, he's so doing. On Keith Olbermann's show last night, the White House's least favorite summer author talked mostly about his upcoming testimony in the Valerie Plame/CIA leak case. But there was also a visit to the state of McClellan's book tour, which, as Olbermann helpfully reminds him, has been full of interviews that have "not been sympathetic." CONTINUED »
Rising through the ranks of CBS, from reporting for Houston's affiliate and then the White House in the early 1960s to being named anchor of the CBS Evening News some twenty years later, Dan Rather has always put himself in the center of controversy. Saying he "volunteered" to do so might be an overstatement, but past incidents, like claiming to have seen the JFK's Zapruder film, though misreporting its details, have pit him at the center of more than one WTF moment.
And then there was Memogate, leading to his ouster in 2005. He's since resurfaced, anchoring a show for HDNet and suing his former employer. And those are just two of his soapboxes. Elsewhere, he's become a vociferous critic of the media. And that's put him squarely in Scott McClellan's camp. CONTINUED »
MSNBC anchor David Gregory may have been dancing up a storm with Chris Brown this morning on Today, but last week, his choreography wasn't so great.
That's because Gregory reportedly backstabbed a colleague in order to get on the NBC Nightly News, reporting on the Scott McClellan book scandal, all the while edging out NBC correspondent Kevin Corke, who did most of the reporting. CONTINUED »
Like Ronald Reagan, George Bush has an unusual relationship with Hollywood. Namely, the industry loves to turn the president's blunders into film and television projects. (So what if nobody watched Recount?) The latest turn: Scott McClellan's book, What Happened, is getting shopped around Tinseltown for a possible moving picture adaptation. "We’ve been talking to TV people, and interest is starting to come, but it’s too early to say anything,” says McClellan’s literary agent, Craig Wiley. The likelihood of a project could hinge on the success of Oliver Stone's W, which will gauge America's openness to paying to watch the president fall all over himself, when it's readily available on cable news already.
A funny happened on the way to The O'Reilly Factor. After all his huffing and puffing, Bill O'Reilly finally sat down with White House weasel Scott McClellan last night. And rather than aim all of his diatribe at the poor sucker for being a traitor to the Bush administration, O'Reilly faulted him for appearing on those other, liberal, Bush-hating networks just to sell his book.
Funny, because weren't those networks the ones McClellan promised, in his book proposal, to go after? Well, he kinda did, blaming them for going to easy on the White House in the lead up to the war in Iraq.
But why'd we have to wait for O'Reilly to go after NBC – the employer of David Gregory, which McClellan said he could devote a whole chapter to – in order to get to this level of third-grade debate? CONTINUED »
David Gregory, the NBC News White House correspondent and MSNBC show host, has ample reason to have it in for Scott McClellan: The former White House press secretary regularly misled the press and Gregory, including in this famous example at left, and this awesome confrontation, and followed Bush administration's orders to play rough with 30 Rock's news operations.
But now it's McClellan who's fighting back against Gregory. It his book proposal for What Happened, McClellan promised to take a look at the liberal media, with special attention to Gregory: "I came to know and respect those who were assigned to the White House beat. They are solid professionals, but rarely scrutinized or put under the microscope. I will take a look at notable personalities in the White House Briefing Room, including David Gregory and Helen Thomas. I anticipate an entire chapter about the former."
And with McClellan's manuscript hitting bookstores, and his making the rounds on all the talk shows, including NBC's (and tonight, Bill O'Reilly's), it's time for Gregory to lash back at his foe. CONTINUED »
Was it a show of goodwill on Friday night when Keith Olbermann cited a Jossip report – regarding Bill O'Reilly's whining about not booking Scott McClellan before NBC got him – on Friday night?
We were a bit surprised to see Mr. Countdown plug the site, given our nearly regular reports from inside 30 Rock about his behavior, both on-air and off.
But given the context, perhaps we shouldn't assume too much: A chance to engage O'Reilly in a tete-a-tete trumps any other agenda. Video below. CONTINUED »
After all of Bill O'Reilly's complaining that Scott McClellan backed out of appearing on his show and going on NBC's programs instead, and then the rebuttal from McClellan's publisher about how O'Reilly never actually tried booking McClellan, word arrives that on Monday night, McClellan will appear on The O'Reilly Factor. Apparently "McClellan's publicist begged - yes, 'begged' was the word - to have ole Scotty on The O'Reilly Factor."
Set your TiVos. And your pacemakers.
The best part of Katie Couric's broadcast last night, somehow, didn't even make it to air.
She sat down with White House foe Scott McClellan to talk about his new book, and she actually proved to be wearing her Reporter Gravitas Hat:
Couric: Weren't you the ultimate complicit enabler, though? I asked a tough question before the Iraq War and you personally called an executive at NBC News and you threatened to deny access to us.
McClellan: I did?
Couric: Yes, you did, once the war began.
McClellan: Me personally? I don't, I don't remember that.
Couric: But did you strong-arm people into not questioning the administration?
McClellan: My style usually wasn't that way.
Couric: Well, it was you who made the call.
McClellan: I just, I just don't remember that. That may be but I certainly don't remember that incident. In terms of my style of working with reporters, it was usually straightforward when we were dealing with each other; I think I had that reputation with White House reporters. I just don't recall that specific incident.
That part of their conversation, while appearing in the show's transcript, did not appear on TV. [TVN]
Who knows. Maybe Katie Couric actually has the most interesting evening news broadcast around, but producers just hide all the good parts.
The smearing of Scott McClellan continues!
Gay escort turned White House lapdog Jeff Gannon caused a sensation yesterday when he wrote that he “knew” McClellan better than anyone on the right wing end.
The comment, of course, had people wondering if Gannon and his party peers were gearing up to paint the former Press Secretary pink.
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To describe his feelings about Barack Obama, former White House press secretary and current White House target Scott McClellan is using the word "intrigued." That's what he told Katie Couric on CBS, and similarly repeated to ABC. So why is he "intrigued by Sen. Obama's message"? Because "it's a message that is very similar to the one that Gov. Bush ran on in 2000." [Politico] Well isn't that quite the endorsement that Obama doesn't exactly want, slash need.
Meanwhile, for all his pomp, circumstance, and publicity, McClellan's book, which it's fair to say, rocked Washington, did little to pad his pocket. A sum of "under $100,000" was paid to him by publisher PublicAffairs Press for What Happened. [Salon] Compare that sum with advances paid to Karl Rove ($1.5 million), Barack Obama ($1.9 million), or Hillary Clinton ($8 million). Not that McClellan carries their degrees notoriety, but there's not a work in Clinton's book, even about her husband, that's as riveting as what McClellan has to say. Too bad it's only liars like James Frey and JT Leroy who get huge upfront sums.
The real victim of Scott McClellan's bombshell book? Not the Bush White House, which has always lived inside its own bubble and rendered moot any criticism of its policies. Rather, it's Hillary Clinton, who would really like to remind you that she's still running for president.
After all Bill O'Reilly's whining over trying to book Scott McClellan, he'll have to watch the former White House spokesman on NBC's Today show this morning like everybody else. And then, later tonight, he should TiVo Keith Olbermann's show, because that's where McClellan will also be making a stop. [Variety]
Yesterday we brought you O'Reilly's rant about not being able to book McClellan, which went something like this: "I said, ‘Hey Scott, come on the program, you know the Factor sells more books than any other show. Absolutely want to have you.’ Then he said he was gonna come on and now he’s not. That shows me he’s a weasel. Then who does he sign up with? The crazy left. Now when you do that, and I’m saying to myself, ‘I’ve got no axe to grind against Scott McClellan.’ I mean I just want to ask him questions about his book. The same thing I do with Hillary Clinton. But now I see what the marketing strategy is: Go to the Bush-hater people and that’s where we’ll sell our books."
Now, via a comment left by someone claiming to be from McClellan's publishing house, we learn how O'Reilly lost out on the big get: CONTINUED »
Scott McClellan's book hits next week, but it's already getting a huge PR push this week, thanks to its early circulation among media types. Oh, and the fact that he pulls a 180 and slams the Bush administration! (Except for that little, touching part where he says George Bush started crying when he fired him).
Naturally, everyone is looking to book McClellan. He's this week's big get! On the list of interview hopefuls? The big bad man, Bill O'Reilly, who was yammering on on his radio show about how Scott turned down his request to come on the show. Imagine! CONTINUED »
If nobody will put Baby in a corner, then Scott McClellan, who spent 2003-06 lying to the press for President Bush, certainly won't be seated there.
The man who watched his hairline gradually recede on live television is back from the shadows with a new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, where he spells out how the Bush administration has screwed up everything it could get its hands on. Which is everything.
Handy bullet points from Politico, which eschewed the publisher's press embargo and bought its copy from a store, include:
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
All of which leaves us with just one question: He's charging only $27.95 for this masterpiece? We would not see Sex and the City three times for just one crack at this doozy.
• Katie Couric may be the perkiest of them all, but that still doesn't get her a Pulitzer.
• Aaron Hicklin is in at Out, where the top requirement is being hot. This could be why Scott McClellan is just plain out.
• The Village Voice went through more changes than MSNBC and Hearst combined.
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes shock the world by having a real baby — no aliens, beach balls, Greirs, or boys — just a real baby girl named Suri, which stands for something or other … our favorite being "Party".
• And while Jared Paul Stern lost the bloggers, the New York Times lost its website, Julia Roberts lost the critics, Pete Doherty temporarily lost his buzz, and Page Six"lost" its freelancers.
• Bonnie Fuller manages not to ask us for coffee or punch us in the face at her book party. And she wants Angelina Jolie's baby real bad.
Say goodbye to the double chin. Say goodbye to the on-the-cusp-of-sweating forehead. Say goodbye to the not-so-subtly snide remarks made to the press corp. We'll miss you, Scott McClellan — but not as much as NBC's drunk dialing David Gregory, who fondly refers to McClellan as a "jerk."
The real question, of course, is why this announcement wasn't made at 9pm on Friday.
Staff Overhaul Continues at White House [John O'Neil, NYT]
Somehow NYT regular Nichloas Kristof expects news media to suddenly care less about Jennifer Wilbanks and Jude Law's cheating (though he doesn't mention Jude specifically, we take Kristof for an Us Weekly kinda guy) and more on serious issues. Like, say, the genocide in Darfur.
Rounding up Nick's points so you needn't click on over:
• The rough treatment received by journalists covering Condi Rice's visit to the region garnered more coverage than the genocide itself.
• In the past year, the networks devoted just a few minutes to the Sudanese crisis. ABC offered 18 minutes, NBC had five and CBS just three, or about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. "In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks."
• NBC has yet to send one of its own correspondents into the region. (Though how many did they send Cali to cover the Michael Jackson trial?)
• Diane Sawyer traveled to Africa, but merely to interview Brad Pitt.
Kristof does not mention, however, all the fantastic coverage of Scott McClellan's press beatings. See, now that's entertainment and hard news in one!
Editorial Director
