McClellan criticized the
Bush administration in his 2008 memoir,
What Happened. In the book, he accused Bush of "self-deception" and of maintaining a "
permanent campaign approach" to governing rather than making the best choices. McClellan stopped short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for the
2003 invasion of Iraq, writing that the administration was not "employing out-and-out deception" to make the case for war in 2002, though he did assert the administration relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" to sell the
Iraq War. His book was also critical of the
White House press corps for being too accepting of the administration's perspective on the war, Speaking frequently on the TV circuit, McClellan told
Keith Olbermann in an interview on June 9, 2008, regarding the Iraq War planning: "I don't think there was a
conspiracy theory there, some conspiracy to deliberately mislead. I don't want to imply a sinister intent. There might have been some individuals that knew more than others and tried to push things forward in a certain way, and that's something I can't speak to. I don't think that you had a bunch of people sitting around a room, planning and plotting in a sinister way. That's the point I make in the book. At the same time, whether or not it was sinister or not, it was very troubling that we went to war on this basis." As a result of his assertions in his book, McClellan was invited to testify before the
U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. During the actual testimony McClellan said: "I do not think the president had any knowledge" (of the revelation of
Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a
C.I.A. agent); "In terms of the vice president, I do not know."
Response to criticisms The Bush administration responded through
Press Secretary Dana Perino, who said, "Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew." Critics of McClellan's book included former White House staffers such as
Karl Rove,
Dan Bartlett,
Ari Fleischer and
Mary Matalin. Fleischer and Matalin have claimed that McClellan had not shared similar doubts during his tenure in the White House, and that if he had held such doubts then he ought not to have replaced Fleischer as Press Secretary. McClellan has responded by stating that he, like many other Americans, was inclined to give the administration the "benefit of the doubt" on the necessity of the Iraq War, and did not fully appreciate the circumstances until after leaving the "White House bubble".
Bob Dole penned an excoriation of McClellan's book, writing, "Bottom line is that I have little respect for turncoats like McClellan who have it both ways. Some in public (and private) life have no shame when big bucks are involved. If their motive is 'good government,' O.K. but that's rarely the case." Dole likened the experience to a personal one, referring to a book, "Senator for Sale," written in 1995 by his ex-staffer,
Stanley Hilton, who worked for him in 1979 and 1980. Dole's spokesperson, Nelson Warfield, responded to the book by characterizing it, in the Boston Globe, as "pure garbage," a "lame attempt at character assassination." On May 28, 2008, ''
The O'Reilly Factor'' host
Bill O'Reilly presented a clip from an interview with Fleischer, who suggested that the book was heavily influenced by the publisher's editor. In a subsequent interview on ''
The O'Reilly Factor'' days later, McClellan told O'Reilly that contention was not true. McClellan further testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that Fleischer's assertion was false. McClellan stated on
MSNBC's
Countdown with Keith Olbermann that "everything in the book is a clear reflection of my views and everything in the book is mine." ==2008 election cycle==