Loose Lips Sell Books

Add speaking ill of current officeholders to the funeral pyre of political life. The latest former insider to cash in? Scott McClellan, who, in his forthcoming memoir as President Bush's chief spokesman, seems to blame his ex-boss for his own false statements about the CIA leak scandal. White House press secretaries  dishing dirt isn't rare, but they usually wait until their targets are out of office—or dead, AP reports.

"The old standards of what was considered proper are less and less abided by," said a Carter-era press secretary. Picking a target in office apparently earns bigger bucks. Some trace the trend to the Reagan years when a former press secretary wrote a book skewering White House officials, including the "aloof" Reagan. "I have no affection for these kiss-and-tell books," Reagan said then. (More Scott McClellan stories.)