The PublicAffairs division of Perseus Books has published a memoir by former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan. The book is titled, What Happened Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.

It somewhat overshadows an editorial by Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy for four years from mid-2001. Published in the Wall Street Journal, How Bush Sold the War is a highly critical assessment of the White House’s foreign policy positions — and one with which I find myself largely in agreement. But unlike Feith’s well-reasoned and carefully considered judgement, McClellan’s tell-all memoir is getting all the press. After all, a book by a man on the lecture circuit needs selling.

Here’s how I reckon the conversation between McClellan and his publisher went:

Scott McClellan, author: Hey, I want to cash in on a book deal, like all the other losers who’re out of jobs and get ghostwriters tell their inside-track stories. At least I was actually employed by the White House. Unlike, say, Joe Wilson.

Peter Osnos, publisher: Not sure a PR’s story is going to sell well. You lot are not much more sympathetic than lawyers and estate agents, in the eyes of the public, and the media hate your kind. So what do you propose writing about?

McClellan: Bush, and what a great job I did defending him in difficult times.

Osnos: Bye-bye. Nice talking to you. May I recommend Vantage Press? Vanity publishing won’t cost you that much, and most people never even notice.

McClellan: Okay, what would you need?

Osnos: To make money? How about inside-track confessions? Sordid tales of sex and betrayal? Did you know Bush lied about the war? Did you have doubts about White House policy?

McClellan: No, not really. If I had, I would have taken my own advice, as I said about Dick Clarke when he published his memoir, Against All Enemies: “Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let’s look at the politics of it. His best buddy is Rand Beers, who is the principal foreign policy advisor to Senator Kerry’s campaign. The Kerry campaign went out and immediately put these comments [that Mr. Clarke made] up on their website.”

Osnos: Best you never bring that paragraph up in public again. We can’t have people questioning our publishing ethics, now can we? Okay, let’s try another angle. Did Bush and Cheney confide in you?

McClellan: No, they didn’t. I just made press statements. Karl Rove actually ran the show.

Osnos: Then here’s an idea: write how the evil twins, Karl Bush and George W. Rove, didn’t confide in you, and told you only what they thought you needed to know to lie to the media.

McClellan: Like what?

Osnos: Take Katrina.

McClellan: Her name was Monica, and that wasn’t Bush, anyway.

Osnos: No, you idiot, the hurricane.

McClellan: Oh yeah. Forgot about that. What about it? I had my hands full defending the White House against charges that they should have violated states rights to send in the cavalry, when the fools in charge of Louisiana didn’t bother to summon federal assistance. Not one reporter would believe that Bush’s powers are actually limited by the constitution.

Osnos: You were the spin doctor, right? Did you set up disaster photo-ops?

McClellan: That’s my job. PRs stage photo-ops.

Osnos: Excellent. Nobody likes staged photo ops. Like spin, or PR, they’re synonymous with insincerity and lies. So just explain matter-of-factly how they were staged, and your book will sell like hotcakes. Nothing of actual substance required.

McClellan: And then?

Osnos: Well, just write how Bush screwed up on this, that or the other, in your extremely well-informed opinion. Without hindsight, book publishers like me would be out of business, and great authors like you would never make the bestseller lists.

McClellan: But my opinion wasn’t well-informed.

Osnos: Who cares? You stood on the podium in the White House briefing room, didn’t you? You have hindsight, don’t you? So you were the only dolt who actually said “yes” to a question on whether Saddam was involved in 9/11. Most people think that was a Freudian slip anyway, because they think a press secretary is supposed to be well-informed of what goes on in the inner circle. People will believe whatever you say now, just because of that White House seal behind you, and the hindsight in front of you. Hindsight will not only make you look well-informed, but it will make you look like you were smarter than them all along.

McClellan: Yeah, I guess. So I write about what I think about Iraq, and the PR job leading up to it — before I was in charge of PR, mind you — that sort of thing?

Osnos: Exactly! Or take the Plame affair. Everyone knows a special investigation failed to turn up anything incriminating at all, except maybe against that Armitage fellow over at State, who wasn’t even being investigated. Bush, Cheney and Rove never did tell you about their role in leaking her identity, did they?

McClellan: Of course not. They knew nothing about it. Well, except that Joe Wilson was a proven liar, and then offered to campaign for John Kerry. Even Kerry washed his hands of him. I advised the White House that if he’s too toxic even for the Democrats, they’d better not comment at all, because that would only give his story credit it didn’t deserve.

Osnos: No, you prat. Want to make money from your book? Just write that the cabal didn’t tell you anything, but they did “collude” to get their stories straight, so they wouldn’t make the mistake that poor fool Libby made. Presumably, this is standard PR advice, but don’t mention that. Just say they met at the time to discuss the Plame case and how Fitzgerald’s investigation might affect the White House. This makes them look like liars, without actually calling them liars, and without implicating you in any way. So you get to dodge lawsuits, and the book will sell millions. Then, when they heed your advice about Joe Wilson once again — not to respond to your book, for fear of looking defensive — everyone will believe they’re guilty as sin. The headline will read: “Bush White House doesn’t deny that Rove and Cheney were in cahoots”. They’re hung by what everyone will think is their own petard — not knowing it’s yours — and you’ll come out smelling like roses.

McClellan: But I have no idea what they actually discussed.

Osnos: Who cares? Write exactly that, in fact. In fact, not taking you into their confidence suggests dishonesty. So why don’t you call it a “culture of deception” or something?

McClellan: But I don’t think calling the White House deliberately dishonest is very smart. Or very honest.

Osnos: So write about “Washington’s culture of deception”. If Barack Obama can say it, why can’t you?

McClellan: Won’t all this look rather dishonourable?

Osnos: Look, Scotty. Mind if I call you Scotty? There are a million people out there who already believe all the adjectives in the world aren’t enough to describe the evil of the Bush cabal. They already believe every word you have yet to write, and more importantly, every word you won’t write. Most won’t even bother to read the book, but will blog about it anyway. Just write them something that doesn’t conflict with their partisan prejudices, and you’ll come out looking like the brave dissenter who did your duty but whose honour now compels him to go public. Who cares that you’re not going public with anything of actual substance? For that matter, who cares about honour? This is Bush we’re talking about, remember?

McClellan: Wow. And I thought I was pretty hot stuff as a spin doctor.

Osnos: No. You gave two-page press releases to journalists who are paid to read them. A mechanical monkey can do that. I’m hot stuff. I have to sell turgid 500-page tomes filled with the partisan drivel of non-entities to a million illiterate nobodies, and get them onto the NYT and Amazon.com bestseller lists to boot. You’re an amateur. That’s why you’re on that side of the desk, and I’m on this side. You have no idea how to spin stories.

McClellan: I see now what you mean by your “innovative and aggressive new model of publishing” that ensures profitability. I’m impressed. Just remember to put in the blurb something like that I was kind of the power behind the throne — one of Bush’s closest aides, or something — and that the White House couldn’t say anything without going through me. I hear what you say. You’re a professional. So am I, so let’s go make some money. I must say, this book-writing business is pretty cool. Used to be you had to actually save for your retirement, and protect your integrity. Now you can just turn around and screw everyone you worked for and make a killing. Here I thought PR was a pretty dishonest but profitable job. It’s clearly got nothing on book publishing.

Osnos: Indeed it doesn’t. Now let’s go find some rare whiskey to toast with. I’m buying.

McClellan: Och aye. A wee dram would numb the pain of prosperity.

Osnos: That it does, Scotty. That it does.

Leon Jacobs alerted me to the hilarious story of a delusional nut named Mark Boyle.

Boyle used to run an organic food company, until he sampled too much of his own merchandise and decided the world should do away with money. Presumably, the owners of the organic food company disagreed. So now Boyle is on a pilgrimage.

Travelling under the name “Saoirse”, which means “freedom” in Gaelic, Boyle won’t stoop to dirtying his hands with grubby money. Instead, he decided to travel the world on foot, subsisting only on peace and love. (And, presumably, a way to blog about it.) His intended destination was Mahatma Ghandi’s birthplace, in India.

Tushar Kanna, an Indian who commented on his blog was rather skeptical of this pilgrimage: “I really dunno what kind of haloed idea of India you have. … I feel if you want to explore India, board onto the next flight to take an enriching experience back home. The country as such is fantastic — a treasure trove of cultures bound to create a single nation. But if you just want to experience poverty, I’d recommend you to rather serve in the slums of Kolkata or Mumbai. Man, you’re really wasting two precious years of your life. … when I told my friends about you in school they passed it off as a story of a crazy foreigner with nothing else to do.”

You can see where this is going, can’t you? Hint: it’s not India. He got as far as Calais before the universe, in which he had placed his trust, told him not to be so daft. That’s where he discovered not only that the French have the audacity of speaking French, but that they don’t particularly like jobless, homeless backpackers, freeloading in their country. Oh, sorry. Calling him a “freeloader” is “harmful to the cause“, it’s unfair, and it’s the exact opposite of “accepting the gifts of the universe”. (By which he means getting some sap to buy him a ferry ticket, and giving him her daughter.)

Not only did the French speak French, but they didn’t much care to trade food for his valuable friendship. Worse, his offers of labour didn’t sell very well in a socialist republic where employment has been curtailed by decades of dirigisme and rigueur, which regulated and protected the unemployment rate until… well, let’s just say France stopped publishing an official unemployment rate.

So Boyle and his buddies made “a really brave decision — to go home”. What poor Britain doesn’t have to put up with. Boyle will now walk around his native country, learning French. Not that I can see why, if the French didn’t like him speaking English (and sleeping in their toilets), the average resident of English seaside towns will love him speaking French. Besides, they don’t speak French in Italy, Turkey, Iran and India, so this is going to be one long tour.

Illustrating the depth of this idiot’s delusion is his comment on a group of Ethiopian refugees he found in France. Apparently, his message about the moneyless life doesn’t apply to people who don’t have money. Especially not when they’re Ethiopians escaping “from Iraq and Afghanistan”. This level of geographic confusion doesn’t bode well for his hope that the next time he hits the road he’ll be more attuned to local culture. Let alone being more attuned to human nature.

Moral of the story? Lay off the organic nuts, lest you become one.

Laurence, a student of international politics of Commentary South Africa fame, has had an interesting article published by the Mid East Web for Coexistence. It summarises the state of play in Iraq, and notes, with caveats, some reasons for optimism. Not everyone agrees with him, sadly.

Iraq is a disaster, right? Everyone knows that, don’t they? Nobody with half a brain still supports the US-led coalition in its efforts, do they? Odd, then, that the markets disagree.

Markets tap the combined knowledge of their investors. These investors put money on their confidence in predicting the future. Because they have money in the game, it is fair to suppose that they’re more likely to have studied and thought about what they’re buying than you or me. This is why markets are often described as “pricing in” all existing knowledge that may affect the future value of the investments that are being traded.

The predictive power of regular stock and bond markets, though well understood by classical economists such as Friedrich Hayek, has been popularised in recent books such as Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, and The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki.

Using markets as prognostication tools underlies the idea of purpose-designed “prediction markets”. The classic example is the Iowa Electronic Markets, where real-money futures contracts on political and economic events are traded. It has become famous for being more accurate at predicting the outcome of US elections than the exit polls that hitherto have been the best available method short of counting ballots.

Several companies, including Google and HP, use prediction markets to support decision-making.

So, if relying on markets as a predictor of the future is a pretty good idea, then this Bloomberg report is cause for optimism about the future of Iraq:

Holders of Iraqi bonds are giving President George W. Bush a vote of confidence.

The country’s $2.7 billion of 5.8 percent bonds due in 2028 returned 15.2 percent since July… Only Ecuador’s debt gained more, rising 18 percent. Iraq’s securities yield 6.21 percentage points more than Treasuries, the most of any dollar-denominated government debt.

While the war in Iraq has dragged Bush’s approval ratings lower, his policies in Iraq have turned around investor opinion on Iraqi debentures.

Granted, a lot of people, especially outside the US, are heavily invested in the notion that Iraq is a disaster. Their entire worldview is based on the notion that nothing good can possibly come of the foreign policy of Bush the Imperialist Warmonger. Instinctively, they feel what’s good for the US is bad for the world. So if the liberation of Iraq turns out to be a hard-won success, as the markets now appear to predict, don’t expect much more than a grudging silence from the anti-war left. For them, maintaining partisan hypocrisy will prove much less painful than joining the Iraqis in celebrating peace, prosperity and freedom. I’d buy futures on that.

(Hat-tip: Greg Mankiw)

No wonder the issues in the US election campaign are turning towards economic concerns. Not only are there some (economic concerns, that is), but the core Bush-bashing issue of his presidency is starting to look rather limp. MoveOn.org had to turn to vicious slander in its effort to discredit the Congressional testimony of General Petreaus as propaganda for the White House. The media has, in general, been fairly reliably opposed to the Iraq war. Reporters have consistently hedged good news with bad, and are usually skeptical of any news of progress. Some outright suppress it, revelling in predictions of the inglorious defeat of the US-led coalition.

Yet the orthodox view of Iraq as a disaster is under threat. Even the BBC is pointing to statistics that — across the board, it says — show the situation in Iraq is improving:

Is Iraq getting better? The statistics say so, across the board.

Over the past three months, there has been a sharp and sustained drop in all forms of violence. The figures for dead and wounded, military and civilian, have also greatly improved.

All across Baghdad, which has seen the worst of the violence, streets are springing back to life. Shops and restaurants which closed down are back in business.

People walk in crowded streets in the evening, when just a few months ago they would have been huddled behind locked doors in their homes.

Everybody agrees that things are much better.

Except the BBC, of course:

But is the improvement only skin deep? And will it last once the American troops, whose “surge” has clearly made a difference, begin to scale down?

Several quotations in the article do support the view that security, progress and peace in Iraq remain dependent on coalition forces and reconstruction efforts. Which leads to only one conclusion: those calling for a rapid withdrawal (including presidential candidates that do) are willing to give up the gains made, condemn Iraq to rule by partisan or insurgent militias, and sacrifice the peace and prosperity of Iraqis on the altar of political expediency. Perversely, if that happens they’ll get to say, “I told you so,” instead of paying the price for their betrayal. I hope the American people won’t let that happen.

Michael Yon, on the gulf between media perceptions of Iraq and the reality he sees on the ground:

No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.”Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.

Today I am in Iraq, back in a war of such strategic consequence that it will affect generations yet unborn—whether or not they want it to. Hiding under the covers will not work, because whether it is good news or bad, whether it is true or untrue, once information is widely circulated, it has such formidable inertia that public opinion seems impervious to the corrective balm of simple and clear facts.

Forget the shocking images and sensational sound-bites we are fed between ad breaks on TV. As always, Yon’s first-hand reportage is comprehensive, honest and perceptive. It makes for riveting — and often heartening — reading. Especially if you view Iraq’s fate as rather more important than its use by lazy editors as a source of bleeding leads. Particularly if you view Iraq’s future as rather more important than its utility as a political billy-club.

George W Bush’s public speaking skills have improved noticeable during his presidency. Passable is noticeably better than atrocious. But sometimes I’ll bet he rues the confidence he has gained speaking ad lib during press conferences.

Here’s a very funny example, from a press conference yesterday:

The transcript of the relevant section, in which he is speaking about progress in Iraq:

I thought an interesting comment was made, I heard somebody say, you know, “Where’s Mandela?” Well, Mandela’s dead. Because, Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas. You see, he was a brutal tyrant…

The real Nelson Mandela is, as we all know, very much alive and (I trust) well. But the literal-minded anti-Bush crowd is having a field day with this comment, treating it as yet more proof, if any were needed, that Bush is an imbecile. See here, for example, or here.

To those with half a brain, who are able to understand a statement in context (as a spokesperson for the Nelson Mandela Foundation urged listeners to do on Radio 702 earlier today), it seems clear that the question, “Where’s Mandela?” refers not literally to Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, a.k.a. Madiba. Rather, it refers to a peacemaker, a unifier, a conciliatory figure in Iraqi politics. Where is Iraq’s Mandela? In this sense, Bush’s response makes perfect sense. It is biased towards an adult audience, perhaps, because it uses advanced literary devices like figurative speech, but it does make sense.

It may still be wrong, of course, and vulnerable to rational argument. I don’t know whether Saddam did indeed kill all Iraq’s unifying figures. But the statement is not stupid. Here’s some free advice for the over-wrought anti-Bush crowd. If you’re going to argue about Iraq policy and disagree with the Bush administration’s prosecution of that war, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, it would help your cause if you didn’t prove your own pettiness and stupidity first.

Yes, there is a connection between Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman who has a book on the market, and sea urchins, who don’t. Some very selective quotation is doing the rounds in the media about Alan Greenspan’s latest book, suggesting that the Iraq war was all about oil. (Here’s a typical version, here’s the outraged hysteria take.)

Greenspan himself refuted such oversimplification, and there’s a good editorial rebuttal here. Among other arguments, it expresses mystification not only that the US never laid claim to any Kuwaiti or Iraqi oil — instead buying it on the open market from the countries in question — but also that the US, despite its supposed oil greed, remains reluctant to exploit its domestic oil reserves, in the name of environmentalism. I largely agree, but would take issue with the last paragraph:

Perhaps those who really think Iraq is about blood for oil can explain just why we would put the lives of young Americans in harm’s way for energy while we safeguard the oil-rich habitats of caribou and sea urchins.

The term “safeguarding” should have read “over-protecting”. There is little evidence that exploiting offshore or Arctic oil reserves would pose a significant danger to either caribou or sea urchins. Environmentalists demand zero cost, and no risk. The environmental cost of exploiting those reserves could be zero — after all, caribou thrive among the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, which is similar to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where environmentalists claim even small-footprint extraction operations would destroy caribou breeding grounds. However, there might indeed be an environmental cost to drilling. We can step lightly, but the only way for humanity to leave no footprints is not to progress at all. Even if there is an environmental cost to be borne, however, there is no evidence at all that the costs cannot be mitigated, and more importantly, that the benefit to US energy security and economic interests would not vastly outweigh them.

The news is spreading among Scandinavian cartoonists, clearly. It’s not that you offend, it’s who you offend.

A Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, has gone into hiding after Al Qaeda in Iraq took time off from sabotaging Iraqi democracy and killing Iraqi civilians to make death threats against him. His crime? Oh, the usual. He offended Islam. He calls its prophet unknown, and the religion outdated. And then he drew a picture of a stray dog with a human head and a turban to illustrate. It’s tacky, granted, but if I were religious, it wouldn’t exactly shatter my faith.

Now the European Council for Fatwa and Research has penned what has been described simply as a condemnation of the death threats. It’s much more than that. The fatwa is in itself a threat, at the very least to freedom of expression.

Here is the text in full:

1. We condemn the caricatures and see them as an insult to the Muslim religion, but also as an insult to all people’s religion.
2. We believe in a free press and work to widen the limits of free speech. But offending that which is sacred to other people is not part of freedom of speech, it is a violation of human rights.
3. We think that the caricatures contradict our effort towards positive integration among different European societies, of which Islam is part.
4. We think that the caricatures are undermining our effort to create a dialogue between religions.
5. We call on European governments to protect Muslims and other believers against offending their religion.
6. We ask religious and human rights groups to discourage people from offending religions and what is sacred.
7. We distance ourselves from all acts of violence including murder, because as in the case of offending other groups this contradicts the teachings of Islam.
8. We call on European legislative assemblies to pass laws criminalizing offense of any religion and what is sacred.
9. We ask all Muslims in Europe to be prudent and defend what is sacred to them through existing democratic laws and we condemn everything that has to do with violence and criminal acts.
10. We stand by our goal to help European Muslims to contribute to the wealth and prosperity of their countries and we insist that the crazy caricature shall not stop this important process.

Sheesh. These people want to criminalise offense against any religion, and they talk about “positive integration”? Haven’t they heard about this Enlightenment thing? It’s sort of a big part of the European tradition. Flemming Rose has a more detailed fisking of the fatwa.

According to the Times of London, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has “shaken the White House” with a “stinging critique” that includes a claim that it went to war for oil:

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

… Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam’s support for terrorism.

Read other reports about it, however, such as that in the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post, and it turns out that Greenspan said securing global oil supplies was “not the administration’s motive.”

“I have never heard them basically say, ‘We’ve got to protect the oil supplies of the world,’ but that would have been my motive.”

So it turns out securing oil supplies and thwarting Saddam Hussein’s moves towards the Strait of Hormuz was the reason why Greenspan himself supported the first Iraq War. It turns out that he shared the administration’s view on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes and intentions. It turns out Greenspan’s actual beef with the current administration is big government, not “war for oil”.

It turns out you can’t believe a word the Times of London writes, because the primary purpose of its “news” reporting is bashing Bush. And you know, I actually think they’ll succeed: I’m starting to suspect Bush might not win the 2008 US elections.

With General David Petraeus poised to deliver a report on progress in the war against insurgents in Iraq, this quotation, courtesy of the Lucianne.com News Forum is apt. It dates to 1863, and comes from General Robert E. Lee of Virginia.

It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers. In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials — after the fact.

Also appropriately, Lee did not glorify war: “It is well that war is so terrible — we would grow too fond of it.”

(Hat tip: Trevor Wensley.)

Khaya, a South African comedian, does some retakes of Caitlin Upton’s infamous flubbed answer. It’s all in the delivery, he reckons.

Hat tip: SA Rocks.