McClellatron 3000 Testifies Before Congress

Talkbot and former White House press puppet Scott McClellan testified before Congress today and said he does not think that Bush was involved with the Plame leak and does not know if Cheney was.

"I do not think the president had any knowledge" of the revelation of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity, Scott McClellan said at a House Judiciary committee hearing. "In terms of the vice president, I do not know."

McClellan also testified that he was asked at the behest of President Bush and Cheney to provide assurances to the press that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was not involved in the leak of Plame Wilson's identity.

He also testified he "was reluctant to do it," but, of course, did it anyway, because Libby "assured [him] in unequivocal terms that he was not, meaning the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity to any reporters" and because Andy Card directed him to "[contact] reporters to let them know about that information … at the request of the president and vice president."

According to McClellan, only later did he come to find out it was all a sham and he'd been played like a Stradivarius.

"When I was knowingly misled but only learned that much later, that's really when I started to become disillusioned at the White House."

…In his memoir, McClellan says the administration became mired in "propaganda" and political spin and played loose with the truth at times.

I'm torn between feeling sorry for the guy that he was used and abused by the collection of scumbags generally known as the Bush administration, and feeling contemptuous at how unbelievably dim he was to have ever trusted them in the first place.

True believers would be utterly pitiable if they didn't so frequently fuck everything up for the rest of us.