The above headline appears concerning former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's recent appearance at a congressional hearing.

Laurie Kellman in her Associated Press article from Washington, D.C. wrote:

"If the nation doesn't trust the Bush White House, it's the president's and Dick Cheney's own fault, Bush's former spokesman told Congress.  From life and death matters on down - the rationale for war, the leaking of classified information ... the government's top two leaders undermined their credibility by `packaging' their version of the truth, former press secretary Scott McClellan said."

The White House, whose integrity has been battered, had only this to say in response, "Friday's hearing was un-enlightening."

The team that gave us a war based on deception to grab oil and expand empire, the team that has given us Abu Grhraib, waterboarding, rendition and unlimited torture and detention without trial, all of which are egregious criminal offenses under the U.S. Constitution dares lecture the rest of America and the world about honor!

In this case we are talking about more than "honor among thieves."  It is not that this label does not apply in the wake of rushing to war after Dick Cheney and the New World Order corporate establishment divided up the profits of war even before the first Donald Rumsfeld "shock and awe" attack was perpetrated.

It is just that the massive excess of the Bush-Cheney international criminal enterprise has reached such suffocating lengths that the term "thieves" represents a classic understatement.

Scott McClellan has revealed no more than what any reasonably well informed willing to pay attention and face the ugly facts already knows.  The big news is that an insider on the Bush-Cheney team has chosen to tell the truth, the same Scott McClellan who once questioned the patriotism and honor of Helen Thomas, the dean of White House correspondents.

Recent revelations from the upcoming book by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan cite the increasing need to confront the impeachment issue immediately.

Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida has vigilantly pursued the necessity of impeachment hearings and of holding government officials, beginning with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, accountable for potential "high crimes and misdemeanors" under mandate of no less than the U.S. Constitution.

As so many continue to point out, this duty to pursue commission of high crimes and misdemeanors by those charged with upholding the U.S. Constitution violates that document and deems it necessary for them to answer such charges.  There is a duty to pursue such acts of grievous misconduct and, when the facts warrant, remove the responsible parties from their positions of power.

McClellan reveals that Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney lied about their roles in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, actions constituting an obstruction of justice.  

Okay, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, you have spent all this time demeaning the idea of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as a form of absurd distraction.

Should you now consider the relevance of impeachment in view of Scott McClellan's latest comments and what they, along with other available evidence, portend for the future of this nation?

Think of what has been ignored thus far.  The team of Cheney and Bush has been permitted to attack another nation in direct violation of international law America propounded at the Nuremberg Trials.  

This violation occurred when America attacked Iraq on unfounded claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons that he was preparing to use against the United States.  Such an attack against Iraq was therefore allegedly predicated on self-defense.

Jeff Gannon smiles after his introduction by President Bush

Washington, DC (APE) - in a stunning move today it was announced that the anticipated replacement of outgoing press secretary Scott McClellan with Fox TV news commentator Tony Snow had been scrubbed. The White House today announced that instead, effective immediately, the new press secretary would be controversial independent journalist Jeff Gannon.

Last week's incredulous activities once more revealed how Bushspeak seeks to divorce America from reality and how the mainstream media is willing to carry out spin control based on fiction disseminated from the White House and the Cheney bunker.

Scott McClellan was a worth successor to Ari Fleischer, whose own father bemoaned how low his son had stooped to earn a prosperous living.  As resident White House spin disseminators it was their responsibility to deliver lines that would make any non-practitioner of Bushspeak choke.  

Who can forget Ari Fleischer displaying righteous indignation by tartly declaring that White House policy decisions were not based on politics?  

That day there were not enough Armstrong Williams style paid cheerleaders in the audience to prevent an eruption of laughter from the assembled reporters, upon which an offended Fleischer stormed angrily out of the room, abruptly concluding the news conference.

A major staff shake-up is hastily evolving for our beloved Bush administration, according to the subscription-only US News Bulletin (a joint effort between US News and World Report and Bulletin News).

First, recall that back in the Fall of 2005, there was talk that several administration members were flirting with the idea of abandoning that sinking ship.

At the time, however, the three members at issue were busy grappling with their personal share of the Bush Administration failures:

Samuel Johnson was widely regarded as one of the wisest men in England even before Boswell's remarkable biography of his life.  He coined many witty sayings during his productive lifetime, but none more incisive or memorable than the one that fits the Cheney-Bush Junta so aptly:

"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."

Johnson's penetrating aphorism registered seismically a few weeks ago during another tense verbal fencing match between the Junta's deceitful propagandist Scott McClellan, who answers to the title of White House Press Secretary.  

The exchange began as Helen Thomas, dean of Washington correspondents, began interrogating McClellan about alleged White House involvement in long term detention and torture-interrogation of designated "enemy combatants" at Abu Ghraib Prison.

When it comes to convicting Bush in the court of public opinion, the jury is getting a bit more friendly.  Still, even those open to the idea that Bush & friends may not be perfectly honest are a bit hard to sway when you start your case with something as large and complex as the reasons for going to war.  A case like that, gives the administration too many "outs," too many ways to cloud the water.

But there's another case that clearly shows the lengths these guys will go to cover up their actions, to try and make themselves look incapable of error.  It's a little thing, yeah, but you know what they say: if you can't trust them on the small things...

Nothing

"Nothing can come of nothing: speak again."--King Lear (I, i, 92)

With all the major news rumbling about the corridors of Washington, as well the main streets of America, it would be helpful if we had a functional communication channel with the WH.  (By way of a brief introduction, my area of interest and expertise on this blog is primarily communication.  But I'll re-visit this in another post.)

Today, I want to talk about Scott's communication. During his stint at the WH, he has certainly made one thing "very clear"(as he so often says the President does):  he can't give information.

Odd, isn't it, for a press spokesperson?  As the main interface between the Administration and the press (the people), McClellan fails at so many levels, his nothing is less surprising than it is disheartening.

Not so long ago (ok, during the Clinton Administration), we depended on press secretaries to give actual, factual, and truthful information during BRIEFINGS.  I miss Mike McCurry (the WH Press Corps does, too).  If you were worried that Scott might bring some light into the rather heated briefing room the first day after the indictments came down, relax.

Scott's new (old) post-indictment meme

"There's an ongoing legal process at work. This is a process we need to let continue.
There is a presumption of innocence."

is the same as his pre-indictment mantra.