McClellan: Bush and Cheney Told Me to Lie

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is writing his White House memoir. It won't be out until the spring, but a very important part of it has been released by his publishers. McClellan speaks about his role in the conversation about the Valerie Plame Wilson outing. From a book summary by Public Affairs Books:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself."

MR. McCLELLAN: And what did he previously say? Let me remind you, back in --

Q He never brought that up. This is new.

MR. McCLELLAN: Back in August, at a partisan forum in Seattle, he said, "It's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog marched out of the White House in handcuffs." This was back in August in Seattle. Let me also remind you, he later backtracked from those remarks and went on to say, and this is from the Wall Street Journal on October 1st, "I freely admit I got carried away. If I left the impression that Karl Rove was the leaker or approver of the leak, I didn't intend to." And then he went on to say that "Mr. Rove's name is a name I am prepared to use as a metaphor for the office." So this is -- so he has made previous statements to that effect, and then later backtracked from those statements.

I think it's very important to understand that there is a Washington, D.C. game of rumor and innuendo. It's the ugly side of Washington, D.C. And I'm not going to play that game, and you shouldn't read anything into that. But let's make very clear that the subject of this investigation is whether someone leaked classified information. And there are a lot of names being floated, and a lot of unsubstantiated accusations being leveled against good people. And, unfortunately, that's what happens when -- in times like this in Washington, D.C. The ugly side comes out.

No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the President of the United States. If someone leaked classified information, the President wants to know. If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates, that's not the way this President expects people in his administration to conduct their business.

Here's a Talking Points Memo video compilation (via Brave New Films) with the highlights of Bush and the Spokeshead denying everything. Where does the buck stop? After a large advance on your memoir.