"Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”:
• 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."
Well, we have almost 30 years of history behind us to evaluate Jimmy Carter. George W. Bush's term doesn't end until 8 more months.What current historians say may differ considerably from what a measured historical view may be in 30 or more years.
The idea that someone could come along and supplant GWB as the worst president ever sends a shiver down my spine.
It could very well happen, but until then GWB will be the worst president ever.... on January 20, 2009.
Until then, it's still Warren G. Harding.
Something else to consider has to do with how Presidents conduct themselves after office inprivate life. Jimmy Carter has been a big disgrace to this nation in many ways.( His Habitat For Humanity notwithstanding.)We'll see how GWB fares. WJC is trying to compete with Carter for the worst President post Presidency.