Inside McClellan's new expose.(THE LAST WORD)(Scott McClellan)

Scott McClellan followed George W. Bush from Texas to Washington where he rose to become White House press secretary. Positioned to know the president well, he has issued some unflattering criticism of the man he still reveres. His just-published book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, is not the first unfavorable insider criticism of the Bush administration. Nor is it quite the indictment the media portrays it to be. After all, McClellan repeatedly refers to the president's "sincere" and "well-intentioned" motivations--even for the Iraq War. That generous assessment certainly suggests that insider McClellan, rather than baring all, is pulling his punches. Another alternative, of course, is that the boyish-looking Texan is as naive as his looks and mannerisms seem to indicate.

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In his book and in various public appearances, McClellan accuses his former boss of not being "open and forthright" about the reasons for invading Iraq, without going so far as to say that he engaged in out-and-out deception. He concludes that the underlying reason for the 2003 invasion and its five-plus years of costly struggle has always been a "vision of transforming the Middle East" based on a "philosophy of coercive democracy." But what if the president had been "open and forthright" about his real reasons? Even that would not excuse the president for starting a war based on what are now known to have been lies.

Bush partisans now attack McClellan for a lack of "loyalty" to the president. But Bush loyalists never say anything about far more important loyalty to the Constitution. Where is there any constitutional basis for "transforming the Middle East [via] coercive democracy"? Where does the Constitution allow a president to start a war while ignoring the clear requirement for a congressional declaration?

McClellan said he left his post after discovering he had "unknowingly passed along false information" given him by Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and even the president himself about the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Regarding the president's role in deceiving him, McClellan excuses the president by saying the president was deceived as well.

McClellan's book provided little new information about the falsehoods dished out prior to the Iraq War. In 2004, Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies also said the war was "unnecessary," but he held a far more important post as chair of the nation's top counterterrorism group from 1992 until he resigned the very month the Iraq War ...