Something weaselly about McClellan book

Loyal spokesman comes clean about Bush in frank memoir

BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist

'SCOTT THE SNITCH"

Drudge Report headline about former White House press secretary Scott McClellan

If you're going to work for Oprah Winfrey, you have to sign a confidentiality agreement that says you'll never, ever, EVER blab to the media or write a tell-all book about the experience. (That's why you've never seen a book titled She Once Gave Me Change for a Dollar: My Years as a Production Assistant with Oprah.)

But if you're the former press secretary to the White House, you're free to publish a gossipy memoir that paints an unflattering portrait of the president of the United States and many of his top advisers.

Then again, even with her numbers slipping a bit, Oprah is infinitely more popular than the prez.

Hello, he lied

Of course, this is the way it should be. You don't want to live in a country where former official government spokes-folks are banned for life from openly talking about their experiences.

Still, there's something weaselly about Scott McClellan staunchly defending George Bush all those years -- and then turning around and writing this memoir in the waning days of the Bush administration. NOW he tells us?

As the Washington Post, Politico.com and others have reported, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception is far juicier than most insiders expected.

- more -