Light Summer Reading

In an election year, you can't expect a lazy summer on the political scene, but a new book promises to heat things up even more.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has written a memoir of his years (2003-2006) in the White House, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." Scheduled for release on June 1, the book includes harsh criticism of the Bush administration.

First announced in an article on Politico.com, McClellan's book offers little new information (unless you consider the fact that Bush has not been “open and forthright on Iraq” to be a surprise). The White House seemed a bit off-balance by the news of the book, but quickly came up with the overused "disgruntled former employee" explanation.

Bush's former advisor, Karl Rove, comes under fire and was quick to come to his own defense on Fox's Hannity & colmes last night. Rove complained that McClellan "sounds like a left-wing blogger," which I gather applies to anyone who doesn't follow the Republican Party line.

Rove and others in the White House are accused by McClellan of being involved in the cover-up that followed the "outing" of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame. Rove's suggestion that "if (McClellan) had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them" was laughable, given Rove's history of political dirty tricks going back to Watergate.

McClellan's motives will certainly be called into question, and his explanation that he wrote the book as some form of personal contrition may or may not be accurate. That's not the point.

I'm not a big fan of "tell all" books. Still, this one may be different in that it was written by someone in a unique position to know how the truth can be distorted by a few elected leaders, who pursue agendas that are not in the best interests of our country.

And this is something we should all understand.