The auditorium was near capacity at Texas State the night of Oct. 22nd as former press secretary to President George W. Bush and author Scott McClellan took the stage.Scott McClellan was asked to speak during Mass Comm Week about his book “What Happened – Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” as well as discuss questions posed by faculty member Prof. Tom Grimes and the audience.
Before beginning the questioning, Prof. Grimes cautioned that he would be playing “devil’s advocate” and would be asking some hard questions. In response, Mr. McClellan chuckled and readied himself for the “interrogation”.
McClellan lamented some of the decisions that President Bush had made. “Initially things started out alright,” he said, “…education reform, money to Africa, but some of his later decisions overshadowed those actions.”
Questioning turned to the decision of going to war in Iraq fairly quickly. McClellan stated that the reasoning behind that decision was based on “intelligence of a lesser certainty combined with intelligence of greater certainty.” However, McClellan said that President Bush “believes that he will be vindicated on Iraq” when looked back on in history.
The former press secretary spread the blame of the decisions made post-9/11 among Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and President Bush himself. President Bush was described as being “insular” and had “ not exposed himself as much as he should have.” Cheney had a “very dark view of the world” and possessed a philosophy where the ”ends justified the means.” McClellan felt he was also culpable and “certainly put fault at [his] own doorstep.”
McClellan did offer the audience a glimpse of vulnerability in a president that has often been described as somewhat “detached”. “The only time I saw self-doubt in his eyes is when we would go see wounded soldiers.” McClellan said.
The audience members got involved later on and asked questions ranging on what McClellan thought of the Oliver Stone movie “W”, to what were his plans after the book tour. “I’m looking at some things,” he said.
After the discussion, students and faculty had various opinions on how the event went. Senior Brett Taylor said “McClellan made the case that Bush was the “decider” instead of a pawn in Dick Cheney’s regime.”
Senior Caitlin McDaniel said, “I like President Bush. I’m voting for McCain. I wanted to hear his criticisms of the current administration.”
Prof. David Nolan of the School of Journalism said that McClellan was “well-spoken” and “didn’t shy away from questions.” Nolan was pleased with the event overall and “really appreciated the questions from the audience.”
photo courtesy of Reuters - Jason Reed
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/scott-mcclellan-bio.html
www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1810019,00.html
http://www.txstatemcweek.com/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/10/mcclellan-obama.html
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