Scotty come lately

I watched the Olbermann hour-long interview and read the "puzzled" reactions from his former bosses and co-workers, but I ain't buyin' Scott McLellan's conversion (nor his book, for that matter).

His public quasi-confession is as much about trying to avoid prosecution as it is about selling books. Recall, from the historical record, what McClellan said when the first Boosh whistleblower, Richard Clarke, outed the adminstration's prevaricators:

McClellan pointed to the timing of Clarke's book.

"If Dick Clarke had such grave concerns, why wait so long? Why wait until the election?" Instead, McClellan said, Clarke "conveniently" released a book in the middle of the campaign season.

This must have been long before his pangs of conscience got the best -- or worst -- of him.

And when Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said basically the same thing in January of 2004 that Scotty is saying now, except a with a tad more bluntness ...

Former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has provided the grist for an unflattering tell-all book about the Bush White House called "The Price of Loyalty". ... Mr O'Neill said President Bush was disengaged, "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," and said the administration was hatching plans to invade Iraq from the day Mr Bush entered office.

... McClellan responded with equal force:

"We appreciate his service, but we are not in the business of doing book reviews," he told reporters. "It appears that the world according to Mr. O'Neill is more about trying to justify his own opinion than looking at the reality of the results we are achieving on behalf of the American people. The president will continue to be forward-looking, focusing on building upon the results we are achieving to strengthen the economy and making the world a safer and better place."

Come to think of it, maybe O'Neill was ahead of Clarke. Anyway, somewhere along the road to Damascus Scotty learned the truth and decided to come clean err, write a book.

Good on him, I suppose. Note that Scotty is directly descended from an opportunistic stripe-changing zebra and a grand conspiracy collaborator/author.

So this appears to be nothing more than the next edition of "All in the McClellan Family" to me.

I'll pass on both the applause and the account of his coming to Jesus.