Journos Pick at McClellan Portrayal

Some get defensive at ex-spokesman jabs; others agree
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted May 28, 2008 3:56 PM CDT
Journos Pick at McClellan Portrayal
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan Gives His Final Press Conferene   (Getty Images)

Scott McClellan writes in his memoir that “the ‘liberal media’ didn't live up to its reputation” on Iraq. “If it had, the country would have been better served.” Some insider reactions:

  • “You know you're a wussy press corps when the former White House Press Secretary says you were too easy on him,” James Poniewozik writes in Time. He agrees many writers were worried about appearing unpatriotic in the run-up to war, but it’s “pathetic” McClellan was parroting President Bush when he knew better.

  • “Excuse me for getting a bit huffy,” says David Corn on CQPolitics, but “there were a few of us” spotlighting Bush’s “new records in presidential deception” all along. Corn adds that if McClellan were really contrite, he’d donate proceeds from his book to the families of Iraq casualties.
  • Glenn Greenwald deems the quote “remarkable” on Salon, and hopes it’s the final nail in the coffin for the “liberal media” charade. “How much longer can this preposterous myth be sustained when even” a Bush rep “derides the media for being ‘too deferential’?”
(More Scott McClellan stories.)

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