McClellan’s Resignation, Part II

Assorted thoughts on Scott McClellan today:

First, have some sympathy for the guy: “Whereas Fleischer developed a well-earned reputation for deliberately delivering up falsehoods to the press, it was never all that clear whether McClellan was fully in on the administration’s game plans. He had a much more complicated relationship with the truth — namely, being unable to come in contact with it — and this is ultimately, I suspect, what endeared him to the White House press corps. McClellan was so obviously on the outside of the bubble that ensconces the President that he couldn’t really be blamed for all the nonsense he spouted in the briefing room. McClellan was unserious and pitiable…. While Fleischer lacked scruples, McClellan simply lacked self-respect. You just had to have sympathy for a guy who was so clueless and so apparently willing to be used by his superiors that he would endure almost unknown levels of public scorn and ridicule on literally a daily basis.”

Dana Milbank: “It speaks volumes about McClellan’s relationship with the press that he chose to announce his departure while the White House press corps was about 30,000 feet over Alabama…. McClellan had lost much of his credibility with the press when he vigorously asserted that neither Rove nor vice presidential aide I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby was involved in the CIA leak scandal — and then refused to talk about it when his assertions were disproved. It put selfless loyalty to Bush above McClellan’s own reputation. His reward: becoming the victim of a staff shakeup.”

Howie Kurtz: “He was painful to watch at times, gamely repeating the same stock phrases under a barrage of hostile media fire, grasping for new ways to deliver the same non-answers.”

And from Fishbowl’s own encounter with Scott while blogging at the White House: “His office, just steps from the briefing room and steps from the Oval Office, was as beautiful and fancy as the press room was dreary and plain. His commanding desk faces a bank of televisions tuned to the various cable channels (one TV even has TiVO) and a wall filled with clocks depicting the time in various cities around the world. Strangely, there’s actually two sets of clocks: One set of traditional-looking clocks with hands and one set of fancy red digital readouts of the time in the same cities. A fireplace guards the door and bookcases and memorabilia line the wall over his couch where we sat.”

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