No surprise ... once a traitor, always a traitor

So Scott McClellan is going to vote for Barack Obama? Where's the surprise? After writing a book criticizing his former employer President George W. Bush, would anyone expect anything less?

CNN reported:

McClellan, a onetime Bush loyalist whose scathing critique of the president sent shock waves across Washington last spring, has long hinted he was leaning toward the Illinois senator.

Once a traitor ... always a traitor.

Andy Card: McClellan's book "tawdry"

Ouch, ouch, and ouch. Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's former fellow employees do not agree with his assessment of the White House in his bash-the-President book ... and they continue to pubicly speak out about it.

Andy Card, former White House Chief of Staff and long-time George W. Bush friend, is the latest to weigh in on the tell-all book. He, like other former staff members such as Karl Rove, is not impressed.

Addressing the issue, Mr. card said:

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for people who are assistants to the president to do that, to write these kind of books.”

Card says, “I’m sad, because it has created a climate that makes it more difficult for a president to get unvarnished counsel if he has to think — or other people on the staff — have to think that what they talk about could show up in a book contemporaneous to their service.”

Card adds, “It’s troubling that a trust was broken. So I view the book as tawdry; the fact of the book is tawdry.”

A trust was broken ... a president cannot discuss issues internally with his trusted advisors without having one break away and, for profit, betray the very people who relied on him.

This continues to be a sad episode....

Previous posts on this subject:
- Scott McClellan: Former "team player" throws the team under the bus
- Bob Dole blasts turncoat McClellan
- Scott McClellan's 15 minutes of fame have slipped away

Scott McClellan's 15 minutes of fame have slipped away....

He was all the talk last week ... out promoting his new book that bashed his former boss, the President of the United States, and his fellow employees who worked with him at the White House.

This week there has been barely a peep. Scott McClellan's 15 minutes of fame are slipping away ... and what did he get for it?

David Rourk today writes about this subject, a subject he is familiar with since he is in the public relations field. Trust is absolutely essential for those on the inside. He writes:

Betraying Trust: In the public relations business, loyalty is a precious commodity coveted by CEO’s and business leaders. The currency of their conversations is trust. The CEO counts on his or her public relations professional as a consultant, sounding board and trusted advisor to navigate fickle publics, aggressive media, and instantaneous, worldwide communications.

Last week former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan released his book presenting a less than flattering view of his former boss, who is also the President of the United States. This is a perfect example of what not to do when you have a seat in the boardroom and are trusted.

Like an attorney-client relationship, good public relations consultants know what happens in the board room stays in the board room.

He goes on to say that, once you write one tattletale book, you are done. Yep ... it looks as if Scott McClellan's 15 minutes of fame have slipped away....

H/T Bearing Drift

Bob Dole blasts turncoat Scott McClellan

"You’re a hot ticket now but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"

-- Bob Dole speaking of Scott McClellan

Former Republican presidential candidate and senator Bob Dole sent a scathing email to former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan and blasted him as a "miserable creature" for writing a tell-all book criticizing his years in the White House and betraying the President.

The email from Dole to McClellan begins:

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues."

Dole continues by saying:

"In my nearly 36 years of public service I've known of a few like you.
...
“If all these awful things were happening ... you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job.

"That would have taken integrity and courage ... You’re a hot ticket now but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"

Scott McClellan's 15 minutes of fame are ticking away....

Scott McClellan ... former "team player" throws the team under the bus

Every president has one ... the disgruntled former employee/fellow worker who turns against the President, who turns against his former fellow workers and sells them out, exposing previously private information while trying to "get back."

And now President George W. Bush has his own ... in the form of Scott McClellan ... the one who was not included in the big decisions, the one who left the White House, apparently holding a grudge that he didn't bother to share with anyone and didn't try to resolve.

Michelle Malkin reminds readers of President Bush's words to McClellan when he left the White House in April 2006:

“One of these days he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas talking about the good old days and his time as the Press Secretary. And I can assure you I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, job well done.”

Now we publicly see the plunge of the knife in the President's back from his former press secretary. To profit from book sales, or to play into the hands of the President's enemies, or for whatever his selfish reasons are ... McClellan sells out ... throws the President and his entire hard-working team under the bus.

The blog Suzie-Q wrote:

MSNBC’s Kevin Corke reported this afternoon that White House officials, on background, went even further, calling McClellan a “traitor” and likening him to Benedict Arnold.

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been all over this story.

On Rush's show Wednesday he said:

"Scott McClellan. ... How does a guy in the Bush administration who was the spokesman and ends up getting fired, end up writing a book that could have been written by MoveOn.org bloggers? How does this happen? This is not isolated.

"Folks, it really is a problem. It is a problem that conservatism has faced and will continue to face, as long as there are many gutless among us. Now, I have a little quote here from McClellan back when he was the White House spokesman.

"Richard Clarke came out. He quit the administration, Richard Clarke, and wrote some tell-all book about how the Bush administration and Condoleezza Rice dropped the ball and 9/11 was basically their fault. And we're all sitting here scratching our heads, 'Who the hell is this guy?'

"Then we found out he was in the Clinton administration: 'A-ha! A plant!' (But Bush sort of deserved it because they held the guy over from the Clinton administration.)

"So McClellan, as press secretary, was asked about this. Here's what he said:

'Why all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns [Richard Clarke] did he not raise these sooner? This is one and a half years after he left the administration, and now all of a sudden he's raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he's bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book. He certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let's look at the politics of it.'

"Thank you, Scott! You, too, have written a book. You couldn't wait 'til the administration of your president was over. You had to inject your book into this presidential campaign. And you and your grave concerns, where were they all the time you were out there fronting for the administration? No, no."

The Big Mouth Frog blog headlined, "Scott McClellan pulls a Judas on President Bush."

Stuck On Stupid blog reveals:

As all the left wing pundits are promoting Scott McClellan’s new “Tell All” book about the Bush administration it’s been revealed that the publisher is a close ally of George Soros and has published Soros’ books along with a multitude of other left wing authors.

Newsbusters' Brent Baker connects the dots from the liberal publisher to George Soros:

Peter Osnos, who wrote Wednesday that he “worked very closely” with Scott McClellan on McClellan's new book published by PublicAffairs which Osnos founded, is a liberal whose publishing house is affiliated with the far-left The Nation magazine and the publisher of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. PublicAffairs has a roster of authors who are nearly all liberals and/or liberal-leaning mainstream media figures, including six books by far-left bank-roller George Soros.

On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, Ari Fleischer related that “Scott told me that his editor did 'tweak,' in Scott's word, a lot of the writing, especially in the last few months.” In an “Eat the Press” blog entry Wednesday, Rachel Sklar asked Osnos: “Did you work directly on the book with McClellan? (Who was his editor?)” Osnos replied: “The editor was Lisa Kaufman and yes, I worked very closely with them.”

Presidential confidant Karl Rove has expressed disappointment at McClellan's need to slash-and-burn the administration as has former press secretary Ari Flesher and former White House counselor Dan Bartlett.

Dan Bartlett said the book did the opposite of what McClellan claimed his intentions were.

"It's these very type of books that don't change (the culture in Washington). They put fuel on the fire. He's doing some bit of revisionist history. ... He knew better than most what these books can do, find their own legacy at the expense of the president. He forced this upon us. I'm done with books for a while," Bartlett told FOX News.

"He knew better than most what these books can do," because he had previously been on the inside. Scott McClellan would be no one if the President had not pulled him into the White House. Now he is using his 15 minutes of fame to bash ... hope he doesn't sit by the phone waiting for that Christmas party invitation. How sad.