Absolution by book deal

So many confessions, so little integrity.

Scott McClellan, Ari Fleischer’s replacement as the Bush administration Pathological Liar (or Press Secretary, to be politically correct), has had a conscience attack in his upcoming new book, saying that the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent was indeed known by Cheney, Rove, Card, and the Commander Guy himself.

I’ll avoid an alliterative schoolyard phrase here by saying, that’s not really news, Sherlock.

But this latest of “tell-alls” does nothing to tell the country what it already knows: Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent who was exposed for political revenge. And the orders for this very likely came from top government officials—that's in addition to Richard Armitage, who recently proffered a half-baked rationale for his mentioning Plame’s name to journalism-challenged Bob Novak.

These officials were probably Cheney and Bush himself, but we’ll never know because Scooter Libby obstructed that investigation to the point where it couldn’t continue. And though he was convicted and sentenced for that obstruction of justice, justice was never served. Like any good mob story, the fall guy (somebody named Scooter, fer cryin’ out loud) was pardoned before ever serving as much time as Paris Hilton did for DUI. In fact, he didn’t serve a minute.

So McClellan claims he didn’t know he was lying as he defended his boss during the leak case, when night after night he’d plop himself in front of the press corps and deliver his monotone fish stories one after another, as exasperated reporters and citizens would open their eyes wider and wider as these fantastic tales unfolded.

Another loyal Bushie swimming away from the sinking barge, swimming toward absolution, perhaps, in Tiny Attention Span America, where all is forgiven or forgotten with the passage of time.

Well, Scott, request denied. Same goes for all of these criminals associated with this administration: Armitage, Greenspan, Tenet, and any other sycophant sleazy enough to throw in with this crowd, then shoot for Absolution By Book Deal. Your service to Bush has done phenomenal damage to this country, damage that will take generations to correct. For this you will never be forgiven or cheered.

Thanks to this administration — that you, Scott, helped to build and protect — a surplus has turned to a deficit, we have illegally and immorally attacked a disarmed nation at the expense of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of lives, and our reputation is in tatters. We have become the nation to avoid rather than emulate. Torture, once shunned, is now embraced.

China and Saudi Arabia, whose ideologies have been anathema to this country for so long, have financed our outrageous debt to the point where nobody even mentions the chaos they could cause merely by saying, “Pay up.”

It’s almost superfluous to say our economy isn’t in great shape, either. So, Scott, crow or confess — it’s too late. But I guess making a few more bucks on a heap of lies was probably part of the plan, too.