SCOTT McCLELLAN'S LITTLE FALLING OUT WITH THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN RUBBER STAMPS

No more thick as thieves

Yesterday it was the activism end of being a blogger that was driving me, more than the journalism end. We got a little involved with Steny Hoyer's collaborative efforts with the Bush Regime to undermine the Constitution, helping collect a couple hundred grand and working with a team on some newspaper ads. In the process we lost touch with the ongoing saga of Scott McClellan who testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Even before he showed up, something remarkable had happened-- a former Bush Regimist agreed to voluntarily come before a congressional committee-- without a subpoena-- and give sworn testimony. For Republicans this was shock and awe! And they reacted... well, they reacted like school yard bullies react when there's no adult around. According to US News and World Report, "Republicans went straight for his throat."

He was dismissed as a "disgruntled former employee." He was likened to no less than the apostle Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus Christ-- and that by a fellow Texas Republican. "Scott McClellan alone," Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio intoned, "will have to wrestle with whether it was worth selling out his president and friends for a few pieces of silver."

Although quite a few Republicans tried their hand at character assassination, afterwards it was generally agreed that the Clown Of The Day Award went to the now svelte former rolly polly rubber stamp from Orlando, Ric Keller, who demanded to know -- out of the blue-- whether McClellan remembered ever taking illegal drugs. If Scott had wanted to play rough with Keller he could have asked him what his role was in his major campaign donor Lou Pearlman's child molestation scandal. It would have been far more germane than Keller's sleazy question.

According to the account in this morning's NY Times, McClellan thinks it was probably Cheney rather than Bush who was behind the leaking of Valerie Plame's name to the press. "I do not think the president in any way had knowledge about it. In terms of the vice president, I do not know. There is a lot of suspicion there." Bush didn't exactly come off heroically either. McClellan said he should how he decided to invade Iraq since he was "less than candid and less than honest" about persuading the American public that it was necessary to attack Iraq.

One of the most lunatic fringe extremists in the whole GOP, Iowa nutcase Steve King, has no interest in getting to the truth and seems to feel no one else should either. He asked McClellan why he couldn't have just "taken some of this to the grave with you and done this country a favor?" King, of course, has a long and shameful career of mixing up "the country" and the radical wing of his political party.