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Scott McClellan, 16 Words and Bush's falling approval

Submitted by Jeff Becker on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 02:09
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Does anyone remember the connection between Scott McClellan and Bush's approval numbers?

On July 6, 2003, Joe Wilson's op-ed appeared in the New York Times, where he claimed that something G. W. Bush had said months before wasn't true.  Putting aside the question of the validity of Wilson's statements, the timing was interesting.

Over the next week, Ari Fleisher and Condoleeza Rice did an admirable job of explaining the situation and dealing with the incessant questions from the White House press corps.

On July 15, 2003, Scott McClellan took over as White House Press Secretary and began leading the press briefings.  Here's a link to his first press briefing.  Personally, I think it showed his incompetence.  That was the beginning of the end of Bush's high approval ratings.

Here's a list of links to White House press briefings.  Peruse them for yourself and see if McClellan did a competent job as Press Secy.  My personal opinion, he was a victim of Murphy's Law who got the position because Bush is loyal to the people who are loyal to him, even if they're not up to the job.  Consider the Harriet Myers SCOTUS nomination.

Here's a chart of Bush's approval ratings. Under McClellan's watch (July '03 to April '06) Bushes numbers dropped below pre-9/11 levels and below 50%, 40% and almost to 30%, and they basically stayed there.  The only time that the ratings climbed was when Saddam was captured.  Otherwise, it was in a steady decline the entire time he was press secretary.

The Bush administration has been widely criticized by conservatives for not selling a conservative agenda (or even the Bush agenda where it differed) to the public.   Scott McClellan was a big part of that failure.

He's no Ari Fleischer. Even Tony Snow couldn't reverse the trend.

His 'tell-all book'?  Considering the source, I won't bother reading it.  It's already being discredited by his co-workers.

[Cross-posted at 5views.com]

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Comments

No! You DON'T blame the Press Secretary!

Submitted by section9 on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 07:23.

The White House made a conscious decision to "look forward" and allow the Left to dominate the debate about how the "16 Words" came to be. Indeed, it never highlighted the fact that British Intelligence never backed off its findings.

It forgot Orwell's admonition that "he who controls the past controls the future". The bumbling and incompetence was George Bush's alone, not Scott McClellan's!

The Clintons would never have allowed their political enemies to take the initiative the way George Bush allowed his political opponents to achieve mastery of the narrative. It was foolish, but it had little to do with Scott McClellan. McClellan was, in the end, a small fish in a very big pond.

Bush was, in the end, much more like his father than he ever wanted to admit.

Just one example...

Submitted by Jeff Becker on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 18:32.

Putting your condescending attempt at scoulding aside (intentional or otherwise), I agree that Bush is ultimately responsible.  However, an incompetent press secretary like McClellan makes the problem a lot worse.

The '16 words' issue is just one example of his failures.  These continued with every press briefing that I watched.  He did not know how to handle the press.  He seemed to be trying to use Ari Fleischer's approach without the demeanor to pull it off.  He was in over his head and it showed in his work.

The issue of competence plays a major part in McClellan's perspective of the operations of the White House.  If he couldn't grasp what was happening around him he couldn't deliver an accurate or convincing message. 

And his perspective plays a major part in the writing of his book.  The point of this post is McClellan, not Bush.