Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary, spoke at Texas State's Mass Communication Week this past tuesday.Professor Tom Grimes interviewed the recent author about his new book, "What Happened-Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," and touched on other topics as well.
Grimes, apologizing at the beginning for playing "devil's advocate," indeed spent much of the night asking relatively difficult questions. It was nothing new for the interviewee, though.
McClellan did have positive comments concerning President Bush, for whom he worked three years. Some of them included his bi-partisan leadership, educational reform tax cuts, increased aid to Africa and his ability to get things done. Unfortunately, "Iraq and Katrina overshadowed much of his success."
The former press secretary now admits that his time in Washington affected his viewpoints. "Stepping out of The White House, I was able to get a clearer look at what went wrong." His book discusses many criticisms of the current presidency.
"It's clear to me that the Iraq War wasn't necessary." McClellan believes that President Bush "made critical mistakes on misguided policies."
The main portion of the back-and-forth from Grimes and McClellan made way for a question and answer session from students. They asked ranges of questions about the movie "W," pre-policy trading, attacking Afghanistan and a Barack Obama endorsement.
Some students aired their thoughts after the event. Graduate Adam Lee said, "I felt the responses were rehearsed, but you can't be surprised by that. Overall, though, I enjoyed it." Junior Will McGinnis expressed his gratitude. "It was cool that he came here for Mass Comm. Week and that he seemed so eager to answer students' questions."
However, one reponse was negative. Junior Daniel Wilpitz was a bit shocked at the tone of the night. "I didn't think that he was going to be criticising Bush so much. He did it pretty gracefully, but it still took me by surprise."
McClellan was asked what his future plans were. "Right now, I'm happy going around and talking about my book."
http://www.txstatemcweek.com/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10649.html
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Scott_McClellan
http://www.slate.com/id/2192266/
http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/cabbio/mcclellan.html
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