McClellan points finger at President Bush and Karl Rove

By: Mike Allen
Nov 20, 2007 01:05 PM EST

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan names names in a caustic passage from a forthcoming memoir that accuses President Bush, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney of being "involved" in his giving the press false information about the CIA leak case.

McClellan’s publisher released three paragraphs from the book “WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington.”

The excerpts give no details about the alleged involvement of the president or vice president.

But McClellan lists five top officials as having allowed him inadvertently to mislead the public.

“I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the seniormost aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby,” McClellan wrote.

“There was one problem. It was not true.”

McClellan then absolves himself and makes an inflammatory — and potentially lucrative for his publisher — charge.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information,” McClellan wrote.

“And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

McClellan says he was in that position because he trusted the president: "The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

In recent conversations and in his many public speaking engagements, McClellan has made it clear he retains great affection for the president.

But White House sources have long said that Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff, allowed McClellan to suggest day after day that they had no involvement in the publication of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Later testimony showed that they did, although neither was the original source of the leak.

A federal jury found Libby guilty of on perjury and obstruction charges, and Bush later commuted his 30-month sentence.

In an appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in March, the day Libby was found guilty, McClellan said Bush did not originally know about the involvement by his aides.

McClellan told King: “I spoke with those individuals, … and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. … said what I believed to be true at the time. It was also what the president believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given. Knowing what I know today, I would have never said that back then.”

Friends say McClellan was privately bitter and hurt.

He and Rove had come to Washington from Texas together.

“Scottie,” as Bush called him, had worked in the Texas governor’s office, making him one of the president’s longest serving aides.

McClellan, an Austin native, was White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006. Before that, he was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2000.

When McClellan announced his resignation in April 2006, he and the president embraced during a tearful appearance on the South Lawn.

Bush said: “I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity. ... One of these days he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, 'Job well done.'”

Now they’ll have even more to talk about.

The 400-page hardcover, with a price of $27.95, is set for publication April 21.

Current Gas Prices and Price History

Why are prices down?
Today's gas prices are lower than last summer because the demand for oil fell last year and now there is more than enough supply. Why did it fall? High oil prices cause people to use less. On average DOE predicts prices will fall to around $46 in 2014 then gradually climb to $57 in 2030. That's an OK prediction, but you can be sure there will be a lot of wild swings on the way. The swings are actually more of a problem than the average price of oil.

One problem is the US has almost No Energy PolicySolar, wind and biomass (ethanol) research are funded at the rate of $1.13 per person per year, and that's all together.
That's not a policy, it's a bad joke.

Why did gas prices go so high?
"Crude oil rose to a 26-month high yesterday after President Bush said that the United Nations Security Council must enforce its resolution on disarming Iraq." That was Feb. 7, 2003, a month and a half before the Iraq war, when the price of gas was $1.75. After that the oil market's fears were replaced by the reality of depressed Iraqi oil production, and in the summer of 2006 by fears of an Iranian oil disruption if the U.S. attacked Iran.
The other big reasons were disruptions in Nigerian oil supplies and rapid increases in China's use.

Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Trial

Tuesday 06 March 2007

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Washington - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was acquitted on just one of five charges after a trial that focused renewed attention on the Bush administration's claims of evidence about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Libby had little reaction to the verdict. He stood expressionless as the jury left the room. His lawyer, Theodore Wells, said they were "very disappointed" with the verdict.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he was gratified by the verdict.

"The results are actually sad," he added. "It's sad that we had a situation where a high level official person who worked in the office of the vice president obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that it had not happened, but it did."
White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said that President Bush "respected the jury's verdict" and said he was "saddened for Scooter Libby and his family."
Perino said there will be no more White House comment because it is an ongoing legal case. She said that Bush had watched the verdict on television in the Oval Office with White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and senior adviser Dan Bartlett.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid welcomed the jury's verdict. "It's about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics," he said.
Although Libby was the one convicted, Reid said, "his trial revealed deeper truths about Vice President Cheney's role in this sordid affair. Now President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct."
Asked about that, Perino said, "I'm not commenting on a hypothetical situation" and added that "I'm aware of no such request."

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law

H.R.5122
John Warner National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007
October 26, 2006

In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."