The truth hurts

Friday, May 30, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

Something tells us President Bush won’t be attending any book signings for his former press secretary, Scott McClellan, whose new memoir harshly criticizes the Bush White House and says the president’s biggest mistake was “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty.”

McClellan, who first worked for Bush when he was governor of Texas and who was Bush’s press secretary from 2003 to 2006, paints himself as a pawn in a whirling political machine driven by White House advisers who deceived not only him but also the president.

Among those deceptions, McClellan writes, was the administration’s involvement in leaking the identity of Valerie Wilson, a CIA operative. McClellan, who told reporters on numerous occasions that Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were not involved in the leak, writes that he did not know the statements were lies when he was making them — and neither did Bush.

McClellan says the decision to wage war on Iraq was a “serious strategic blunder” and that Bush engages in “self-deception” and “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment.” He also writes that the president and his advisers spent the first week after Hurricane Katrina “in a state of denial.”

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday the president is “puzzled” and “doesn’t recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in.” Ari Fleischer, McClellan’s immediate predecessor, said the accusations come “from the last person” anyone would have suspected and that “all you can do is scratch your head when you see how far he’s turned.”

Certainly, McClellan’s book isn’t telling the American people anything that hasn’t already been reported about the Bush administration’s incompetence. But coming from someone who once was among Bush’s staunchest supporters, it adds considerable ballast to the criticism already heaped on Bush — whose popularity has sunk so low that even many Republicans are turning away from him.

And years from now, after the fuss and dust have settled, McClellan’s book will be just another installment in the growing pile of declarations and documents that will show the world just how bad the George W. Bush presidency has been.