Not an Addition to My Summer Reading List .....

I suspect there's very little in Scott McLellan's book about the Bush White House that I would find surprising or disagreeable ..... but that doesn't mean I plan on buying a copy.

"The former White House press secretary most known for defending President Bush on Iraq, Katrina and a host of other controversial issues," one report notes, "has produced a memoir damning of his old boss on nearly every level — from too much secrecy to a less-than-honest selling of the war to a lack of personal candor and an unwillingness to admit mistakes."

That same report goes on to note that the White House responded angrily to the memoir, calling it self-serving sour grapes, and its author disgruntled. Again, no surprise there ..... kind of expected, actually .... exactly what Scott McClellan would have said, I suspect, were he still the administration's mouthpiece.

McClellan claims that, in his capacity as the White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006, he was a public servant. Really? In my humble opinion, he was a political servant, a doctor of spin who used every scalpel and gyro at his disposal to craft news and information to suit his masters' purpose.

During his tenure, if anyone were to rear-up on their hind legs and bleat in opposition to the Bush administration and its policies, he was the man on the podium tasked with putting them back in their place with statements that questioned their information, their motivation, their state of mind and their patriotism.

And now he's making the very same charges himself? And making a ton of money in the process? Personally, that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. For what it's worth, I don't plan on adding my own pittance to his bank account.

Follow-Up: "In an encounter last night in the lobby of a New York hotel, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan apologized for denouncing a former White House colleague, Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, after Clarke wrote a book highly critical of the Bush administration in 2004," says this report from ABC News. "Now McClellan is facing a similar denunciation from the White House for his own highly critical book."