Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Dr. Tom Grimes spoke about McClellan’s tenure at the White House for an hour on Tuesday Oct. 21. The two spoke on subjects ranging from the War in Iraq to how people will view this presidency.
McClellan believes that the presidency started out all right, but started to fall apart because of some of President Bush’s character traits.
“I think it would be better if he was more of a reflective person,” said McClellan. “I hesitate to make a prediction on how people will view him 30, 40, 50 years from now.”
McClellan also believes that many of Bush’s flaws were actually viewed as his strengths heading into the White House.
“A decisive leader is now viewed as arrogant and inflexible and unwilling to acknowledge mistakes,” McClellan said. “He surrounded himself with a strong team, but it was too like-minded in its thinking.”
Noam Krig, a student at Texas State, was a little disappointed with the presentation. Although as a whole he didn’t really like the lecture, he did enjoy one part.
“My favorite part was the humanizing of President Bush. Finally, someone says something positive about this great man,” said Krig.
Texas State grad-student, Samantha Manley, feels that McClellan was involved in a lot of corrupt, irresponsible things while in the White House. However, she does not believe that he was a bad person
“It is easy to judge a person without ever seeing him on a personal basis and I think that seeing him live and hearing him talk did give me a higher opinion of him. It seems that his intentions were sincere, but his actions were misguided,” said Manley.
Although not the main focus of his lecture, McClellan did talk about writing his book a few times and the challenges that he faced while doing so.
“The book was not an easy thing to do; it was not an easy thing to write what I did. I had to step back and separate my personal affection for him (Bush) from his policies and be able to take that clear-eyed look at things and come to the conclusions that I did. The reason I wrote the book, more than anything else, is that I really want to see Washington change the way that it works,” said McClellan.
McClellan believes that the presidency started out all right, but started to fall apart because of some of President Bush’s character traits.
“I think it would be better if he was more of a reflective person,” said McClellan. “I hesitate to make a prediction on how people will view him 30, 40, 50 years from now.”
McClellan also believes that many of Bush’s flaws were actually viewed as his strengths heading into the White House.
“A decisive leader is now viewed as arrogant and inflexible and unwilling to acknowledge mistakes,” McClellan said. “He surrounded himself with a strong team, but it was too like-minded in its thinking.”
Noam Krig, a student at Texas State, was a little disappointed with the presentation. Although as a whole he didn’t really like the lecture, he did enjoy one part.
“My favorite part was the humanizing of President Bush. Finally, someone says something positive about this great man,” said Krig.
Texas State grad-student, Samantha Manley, feels that McClellan was involved in a lot of corrupt, irresponsible things while in the White House. However, she does not believe that he was a bad person
“It is easy to judge a person without ever seeing him on a personal basis and I think that seeing him live and hearing him talk did give me a higher opinion of him. It seems that his intentions were sincere, but his actions were misguided,” said Manley.
Although not the main focus of his lecture, McClellan did talk about writing his book a few times and the challenges that he faced while doing so.
“The book was not an easy thing to do; it was not an easy thing to write what I did. I had to step back and separate my personal affection for him (Bush) from his policies and be able to take that clear-eyed look at things and come to the conclusions that I did. The reason I wrote the book, more than anything else, is that I really want to see Washington change the way that it works,” said McClellan.
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