McClellan Speaks While White House in state of Denial

AP) - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan between May 2003 to April 2006, defended his bombshell book about the Bush administration (and that) he didn't speak up against the overselling of war in Iraq at the time because he, like other Americans, gave the president the benefit of the doubt. He hoped his book would help change the culture that has turned governing into a never-ending campaign.

A Main Turning Point: The president was leaving an event in North Carolina, McClellan recalled, and as they walked to Air Force One a reporter yelled out a question: Had the president, who had repeatedly condemned the selective release of secret intelligence information, enabled Scooter Libby to leak classified information to The New York Times to bolster the administration's arguments for war? McClellan took the question to the president, telling Bush: "He's saying you yourself were the one that authorized the leaking of this information." "And he said, 'Yeah, I did.' And I was kind of taken aback," McClellan said. "For me I came to the decision that at that point I needed to look for a way to move on, because it had undermined, I think, a lot of what we had said." "Republican critics dismissed him as a turncoat, a sellout and a disgruntled former employee. The White House called the book puzzling and sad." What is sad is their cruel disrespect to McClellan, the dozen or so former officials who have written similar expose's. The vaulted to No. 1 on Amazon.com's best-seller list.