Update (6/3/08): Printed in the Sioux City Journal. “Yikes!” on the comments…
Cartoon by Steve Kelley
I was thinking about purchasing “What Happened” by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, which is the latest in a series of tell-all books revealing corruption in the Bush Administration and media lapdoggery. You might have heard about similar books by or about former members of the Bush Administration (O’Neill, Clarke, Rumsfeld, Rove, Libby), a former diplomat (Wilson), White House counsel to Nixon who was responsible for Watergate (Dean), former U.N. officials (Ritter, Blix), former CIA officials (Tenet, Drumheller, Johnson), a U.S. senator (Byrd), and leading journalists (Chandrasekaran, Isikoff and Corn, Savage, Fallows, Greenwald, Packer, Boehlert, Hersh, and Goodman). Other books dealing with the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and other Bush catastrophes are available from Frank Rich, Thomas Ricks, Eric Alterman, Robert Draper, Paul Waldman, Naomi Klein, , Stiglitz & Blime, Craig Unger, Charles Ferguson, Jacob Weisberg, Cerf & Navasky, and Marcy Wheeler.
This is by no stretch of the imagination an exhaustive list. For instance, I excluded several titles that dealt more generally with the history of Iraq, the Middle East, and U.S. imperialism. Also, while several of the books mentioned above are rooted in particular philosophies on politics, war, diplomacy, and democracy, they are not directly philosophical texts – however, it would not be a difficult endeavor to find such texts that speak directly to the issues faced by the United States in recent years. But recognizing that past and present members of the Bush Administration are perhaps not known for, you know, reading, perhaps I ought to give McClellan some credit. Clearly he and his publisher, given the intelligence available to them at the time, believed that a pre-emptive invasion of old news into the American consciousness was absolutely essential. After all, we wouldn’t want the smoking gun of Bush corruption to come in the form of a V8-style slap across the forehead.
To be fair, I shouldn’t criticize McClellan for telling his story. Yes, it ought to be painfully obvious by now that the Bush Administration and our media system failed on Iraq – again, and again, and again. But as the recent smear campaign facing McClellan (and its acceptance by mainstream media) has indicated, the Bush propaganda machine is still operational. Grinding to a halt fairly soon, but still running on fumes, I guess. So I won’t criticize McClellan for publishing a book that I believe should not have been necessary to convince the American public that the Bush Administration will leave a lasting stain on the U.S. presidency and the nation as a whole (particularly its relationships with the rest of the world) and should have ended long ago. Oh wait, it did… sort of. I will criticize him, as others have, for being rather slow on the draw.
It is difficult to quantify, at this point in time, how disastrous the Iraq War has been, and will be, for… well, the world. We know that the war has been devastating to U.S. credibility around the world, the economy, and to soldiers and their families for whom being “greeted as liberators” meant death or a combination of physical and psychological trauma that would make distinguishing between life and death seem rather arbitrary. We also know that Iraqis have become the victims of a humanitarian crisis with millions displaced from their homes, hundreds of thousands dead, many suffering through poverty and unemployment without access to basic accommodations such as education and health care. Ultimately, of course, we must wonder if the world will be any more peaceful, safe or democratic once the occupation ends, assuming that actually happens.
As we struggle to articulate in moral, economic, political, and social terms the devastation caused by the Iraq War and what it means for the world, we ought to consider, at least for a moment, the significance of McClellan’s book. Seth Leibsohn frames this inquiry appropriately, asking about McClellan’s book,
“[D]oes it help history, does it shed light, does it add to the sum total of knowledge about a topic history or contemporary analysis can use to shed light on an administration, or rather, is this a self-aggrandizing after-the-fact justification to bolster one’s own reputation and credibility, especially after having done such a poor job in the first place?”
Indeed, it seems the book may represent much more of the latter. Given the untimely nature of it, I can only hope that, after years of propping up a corrupt government, McClellan might be able to clean off some of the blood on his hands and prevent further devastation in Iraq.
