McClellan's sublime ignorance, awkward dissembling and limitless ability to take a punch made him the perfect mouthpiece for the scandal-ridden Bush White House. His rumored replacements, including Fox News anchor Tony Snow and one-time Iraq coalition provisional authority shill Dan Senor, simply don't offer President Bush McClellan's pin-cushion utility.

In tribute to his dismal service to the American people, here is a sampling of the Scott McClellan Hall of Shame:

• "I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove." McClellan on PlameGate, September 23, 2003.
• "The President knows he [Rove] wasn't involved." McClellan on PlameGate, September 23, 2003.
• "There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these three individuals. They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did." McClellan on the roles of Libby, Rove and Abrams in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, October 7, 2003
• "As I've previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it." McClellan on new PlameGate revelations, July 11, 2005.
• "That's accurate." Later changed in White House transcript to "That's not accurate" regarding a statement that Rove and Libby were involved in outing Valerie Plame, October 31, 2005.
• "The last thing anyone should do is politicize this issue by rewriting history." McClellan on revelations regarding bogus uranium in Niger claims, July 17, 2003.
• "[I]t is sad and irresponsible that The New York Times is rewriting history to fit an inaccurate storyline and conveniently ignoring key facts." McClellan on criticism of Bush's preparation for Hurricane Katrina, February 10, 2006.
• "This is getting into trying to finger-point and play the blame game." McClellan on bungled Bush response to Katrina, September 6, 2005.
• "This was a report based on a single anonymous source that could not substantiate the allegation that was made." McClellan describing the Newsweek Koran story, not the role of Curveball in Iraq pre-war intelligence, May 16, 2005.
• "Declassifying information and providing it to the public, when it is in the public interest, is one thing. But leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious. And there is a distinction." McClellan justifying President Bush's authorization to leak classified information from the October 2002 NIE to attach Joe Wilson and other White House critics, April 7, 2006.
• "The Democrats have a credibility problem when they try to suggest that we were manipulating intelligence, or that this is about something other than what I just said. That's crass politics." McClellan on criticism of President Bush's leaking classified material, April 7, 2006.

For more of the greatest hits of Scott McClellan and friends, see the current "Top 10 GOP Sound Bites" and archives.

—Perrspective 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) |

1 Comment

Excellent! That pretty much sums up McClellan's career.

Posted by Tom on April 19, 2006 12:11 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments (You may use HTML tags for style)

Enter these characters into the text field below: