Dana Perino reveals lesson in forgiveness learned from President George W. Bush

Politics is full of betrayers. There's always those who will turn but, until it happens, we never know which ones it will be. Dana Perino shares in this video clip a long-held secret about how President George W. Bush urged her to forgive a colleague who had betrayed the president.

She also reveals that President Bush said to her he knew she would not do the same. Those who are loyal are a rare few.  A lesson learned early on was that if you have one friend in politics, you're rich.

Dana's revelation about GWB is yet another example of why I admire the Bush family and their leadership style....

'Those who don't know the value of loyalty ...'

"Those who don't know the value of loyalty can never appreciate the cost of betrayal." --Anonymous

Arlen Specter loses after betraying citizens, GOP, & lining up with Obama

After Arlen Specter lost the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, I went back through my archives to find the articles I had written about him since his decision last year to leave the GOP.

I still remember when I heard the news the he was jumping what he perceived to be a sinking GOP ship and joined the SS Obama. I was outside planting flowers while listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio.

The SWAC Girl posts about Specter told the story of the next year ...

- Traitor Republicans (2/9/2009) - Specter votes for the stimulus package
- Arrogant politicians ... not listening to the voters (2/10/2009)
- Defeat Arlen Specter in 2010 ... sign the petition (2/12/2009)
- Could this be true? (4/28/2009) - first reports of Specter defecting
- The power of the ring (4/28/2009)
- Benedict Specter ... fair weather friend (4/29/2009)
- GOP donors demand money back from Specter (4/30/2009)
- What did he expect? (5/6/2009) - Democrats yank promised chairmanship
- Town hells? (8/5/2009) - Specter's condescending attitude at townhall
- Katy Abram ... the new voice of the Silent Majority (8/13/2009) - stands up to Specter
- Politico ... "Forecast for Dem primaries: Ugly" (11/23/2009)
- Specter to Bachmann: "Act like a lady" (1/22/2010)
- Ross Mackenzie: Europe shows America's future (5/16/2010)

Now we've come full circle to the defeat of Arlen Specter who, just a year ago, thought he saw the handwriting on the wall and jumped the GOP ship only to find himself squarely in the middle of a hot griddle of citizen unrest and distrust of the very president he lined himself up with.

The Washington Examiner has all the latest on Specter's loss:

- Specter sunk by Pennsylvania Dems by Susan Ferrechio
- Arrividerci, Arlen by Michael Barone
- "Can Specter have his vote on the stimulus back now?" by David Freddoso

Vietnam all over again? Betrayal on the Iraqi battlefield

~He saved American lives in Iraq but betrayal by "friends" put Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran in prison for life~

It is written all through history about betrayals of "friends." Christ and Judas, Caesar and Brutus, Benedict Arnold and America are some of the better known betrayals.

When at war, a soldier/Marine has to know he can beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt trust his fellow soldier/Marine to watch his back. When that soldier/Marine betrays, it is especially bitter.

And that is exactly what happened to John Hatley, an Iraqi veteran, who reportedly was betrayed by his soldier brothers. John Work, a retired Colorado law enforcement officer, wrote about this case:

Former U.S. Army Master Sergeant John Hatley is now serving a forty year sentence in Leavenworth prison. He was convicted by a 2009 Court Martial of murdering four Iraqi insurgent arrestees in Baghdad following a 2007 ambush and firefight, and dumping the bodies into a Baghdad canal. Two other Sergeants with the Alpha Company 1-18 1st Infantry were also convicted and sent to prison.

Shades of Vietnam ... but the story goes much deeper. Sgt. Hatley was a decorated member of the military:

John Hatley was a highly decorated combat veteran of nineteen years and six months military service. He was deployed in Bosnia, Kosovo, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Operation Desert Storm and three tours of duty in Iraq. The soldiers of Alpha Company 1-18 1st Army Infantry knew him to be the first into a hot spot and the last to come out. Mrs. Hatley says that her husband was a legend in Alpha Company and treated the soldiers under his command as though they were family.

"... treated the soldiers under his command as though they were family...."

Sgt. Hatley's wife is on a crusade to clear his name and she relays the entire, sordid mess with insight into the story that exposes a soldier getting into trouble and reportedly offering Sgt. Hatley's head on a platter to save his own hide.

War wears on soldiers and Marines in a way that we, sitting in our safe, comfortable homes, can never understand. Our priorities are the latest sports game or that golf date at the country club ... while our soldiers are a world away dealing with life-and-death situations on a daily basis. And, yet, those who are not in those situations try to second-guess their actions even under the new restrictive Rules of Engagement (ROE) such as have been put into place in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Hatley's wife told of his grief at losing one of his soldiers:

...on February 27, 2007, an insurgent sniper killed Staff Sergeant Karl Soto-Pinedo, who was like a beloved son to Hatley. Mrs. Hatley told me that her husband was grief-stricken to the point of dysfunction by Soto-Pinedo’s death. On March 17, Spc. Mario Guerrero was killed by a road-side bomb explosion. All the same, the patrols went on ceaselessly, from 4:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. – every day. For months on end Hatley and his soldiers fought the war on three or four hours of sleep per night.

The article goes into detail about the events leading to Sgt. Hatley's arrest, trial, betrayal by fellow soldiers he had treated as family, and his conviction of life in prison that reportedly left press members weeping.

We should all be weeping ... and shouting ... at the outrage.

What did he expect?

Arlen Specter jumped from the Republican ranks to the Democrat ranks thinking he would keep his committee seniority, supposedly because he had been told so by the Democrats brokering the deal.

Surprise. Life-long Democrats were not happy the new kid on the block was going to take their places and so they complained. As a result, Sen. Specter now finds himself the junior senator from Pennsylvania.

Reportedly, Harry Reid himself promised the seniority ... yet Harry Reid himself read the resolution stripping Specter of that seniority.

Knife in the back....

GOP donors demand money back from Specter

"They gave that money to elect a Republican. They did not give that money to strengthen [Democratic Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid's majority," NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh said. "I expect a lot of people will be looking to have their money returned."

Uh-oh. One thing politicians never like is having to hand back the money ... and it looks as if Republican turncoat Arlen Specter is going to be returning tens of thousands of dollars demanded by angry Republicans after his switch to the Democrat side of the aisle.

How much is he looking at? A quick glance shows:

$5,000 - Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
$5,000 - Lamar Alexander's (R-TN) Tenn PAC
$5,000 - Sen. John Cornyn's (R-TX) Alamo PAC
$5,000 - Sen. Bob Corker's (R-TN) Rock City PAC
$10,000 - Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-K) Bluegrass Committee

One Republican is even demanding that Specter return all campaign donations:

Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Robert A. Gleason Jr. isn't satisfied with Mr. Specter returning campaign contributions on request. He wants the senator to return all of his campaign loot voluntarily.

Mr. Gleason told CNN that the new Democrat should "do the right thing and proactively return any and all campaign contributions he has received in recent months to run as a Republican in the upcoming election."

He also wants Mr. Specter to apologize to the state's Republicans for misleading them.

Mr. Specter, long considered among the more liberal Republicans in Congress, said he switched parities in part to avoid a formidable challenge from staunch fiscal conservative Pat Toomey in the Republican primary for the 2010 election.

Specter surveyed the landscape ... saw he couldn't win ... and he defected.

Loyalty ... betrayal ... turncoat ... there aren't even enough adjectives to describe someone like that.

Benedict Specter ... fair weather friend

He betrayed his principles ... he betrayed his team ... he saw the Democrats had the upper hand and decided to save his hide and join them. Many are now calling him Benedict Specter.

Investors Business Daily called it like they saw it:

No one is falling for Specter's hand-wringing rationale that "since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right." He was just as uncomfortable with Reaganism back then as he is now, all along relishing his role as RINO — Republican In Name Only — whose vote was up for sale.
...
There has never been a more important time to temper the power being wielded in Washington, never a time when putting country before political ambition was so consequential. The system of economic freedom that built and sustains America is at stake, as are the fortunes of our children and grandchildren.

Thanks to Arlen Specter, that destructive power may now be absolute. Reserve a space for a new addition to history's Rogues' Gallery.

No checks-and-balances ... one Party will rule D.C. ... Benedict Specter....

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

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.

His name is synonymous with betrayal....

His name is synonymous with betrayal. Even now, over 200 years later, it is still remembered, passed down through history from generation to generation.

A home school dad sums up Arnold this way:

... in 1780, General Benedict Arnold of the Continental Army weakened the positions of his men at West Point and gave British Major Andre the plans to the fort. (Arnold's plan was to surrender the fort in exchange for 20,000 pounds.)

Now, if Arnold's documents would have been successfully delivered to Andre's commander, this traitorous act could have given the British a strategic advantage that could have split the country, leading to an American surrender. However, Andre was captured by three soldiers in the Continental Army; Benedict Arnold then fled to the protection of the English; and the defensive positions of the important fort along the Hudson River were not compromised.

In the end, America can be thankful for the THREE men who stopped Andre as he tried to go back to the English lines. Although Andre was dressed in civilian clothes and the plans were hidden in his boot, these three men had the foresight and desire to do what they believed was right.

Today, we hear on the news about the potential SHOE BOMBER that tried to destroy an airplane. Well, the "BOMB" in Andre's shoe would have been big enough to destroy the American Revolution.

Simplistic, yes ... but it gets the point across. Here is a more detailed description:

Arnold suffered many disappointments that embittered him. When he was promoted to major general in February 1777, others he thought less deserving preceded him in rank. Gates received the credit for the victory at Saratoga.

Named (June 1778) commander in Philadelphia, Arnold was accused of overstepping his authority. His second marriage (1779) to Margaret Shippen, the daughter of a Loyalist, also aroused suspicions.

His bitterness, along with a need for money to pay heavy debts, led Arnold to negotiate with the British. He conceived a plan to betray West Point, a post that he commanded.

His attempted treachery was revealed when John Andre, a British major, was captured in September 1780 carrying Arnold's message. Arnold escaped to the enemy lines and was commissioned a brigadier general in the British army. For his property losses, he claimed and was paid about $10,000.

He led two British expeditions, one that burned Richmond, Va., and the other against New London, Conn.

His name is synonymous with betrayal....