On McClellan...

Scott McClellan...oh, Scotty.

Here's the thing about Presidential Press Secretaries (PPS), it virtually always been this way. PPS are by the very definition of the job, not supposed to tell the public everything, and to push the President's agenda.

This is why we are supposed to have a media who:

A: Is well-funded.

B. Has a freaking backbone.

C: Is fair and impartial to any party in power.

This is why I support the British system where the Prime Minister has to haul his/her ass before the House and answer direct questions from the members. There needs to be, somehow, a system built into the job description of the President that forces him/her to answer the media and/or one of the houses of Congress every six months or so.

But, back to McClellan. Clearly, the guy is a weasel. But, was Pierre Salinger a weasel during the Cuban Missile Crisis? It's a fine line to draw.

While McClellan is the weasel, and while you may not totally buy his "I was in the dark!" defense, at least he has become a credible source for saying what most people already suspected.

There's a huge difference between people assuming X, and then knowing X.

For decades, people assumed based on some solid circumstantial evidence that Pete Rose bet on baseball games he managed. This evidence led to Rose being banned from ANY professional baseball activities for life. This was despite YEARS of flat-out, angry denials of the fact by Rose himself, effectively turning these denials into a money making source of income for himself. And, for years pundits in baseball/sports made the point that IF Rose just came out and finally did a mea culpa and admitted he had, in fact, bet on baseball games, he would be forgiven because "America likes to forgive."

I remember thinking that was total bull, and after so many decades of denials, Rose finally admitting he had done would lead to a backlash of people saying..."DUH! What the freak took you so long!" Finally, in January of 2004, Rose finally capitulated and admitted he had INDEED bet on baseball games he managed. Moreover, in March of 2007 Rose went further during a radio interview noting that he bet on the Reds "every night" while he was manager of the team.

Rose got HAMMERED. He was never and will never be allowed to get back into baseball while he still alive, if at all.

It's the subtle point here, that while you may suspect with strong circumstantial evidence, the key is when you have the person coming out and saying, "Yeah, I did it."

Arguably, this McClellan book isn't near that admission by Bush, Cheney, Rove, or even Rumsfeld. But, it's the MOST damning evidence we now have from a long-time Dubya loyalist who realized/realizes he was sent down a river, thigh high in shit, with no paddle, no anchor, no sail, headed straight for a shitfall at 200 feet down.

As daft as little Dana Perino seems in her role as the current PPS, I wonder what she's feeling this week as she sees what's happening. Moreover, I wonder besides the 4 principals named above (plus Powell who's too much the soldier, and Karen Hughes), who else will come out in the next 3-5 years with a book that is so biting, and will have so much credibility of what really took place in those dark halls of the West Wing.

P.S. (late addition @ 9:00pm EST) While the right will claim McClellan is being bruised and beaten by the right-wing scheme machine (trademark: Rachel Maddow), claiming he has made/will make a fortune on this book deal keep this in mind from former Nixon man John Dean: He notes how Scotty will likely be slammed with several subpoena's that will require him to hire high-priced lawyers who know how to battle such tactics, while will inevitably cause his "fortune" to be spent on lawyers.