Washington’s Culture Of Deception

A bomb exploded inside Washington, D.C., this week, and, no, it was
not the work of a Middle Eastern terrorist. It was the work of former
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. He, perhaps more than
anyone else, was the face of President Bush’s White House. He
faithfully served President George W. Bush for close to a decade and
served as Bush’s Press Secretary for some three years, resigning on
April 19, 2006. He was also regarded as one of the most loyal and
tight-lipped of the Bush insiders. However, his new book, “What
Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of
Deception” has exploded in the face of what history will probably
regard as one of the most deceptive and manipulative Presidential
administrations in American government. The Washington Post (and a
host of other media) released a report regarding McClellan’s book this
past Wednesday.

According to McClellan’s book, the Iraq war was sold to the American
people with a sophisticated “political propaganda campaign” led by
President George W. Bush himself. McClellan charges that Bush aimed at
“manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major
reason for going to war.” He also says he was deceived by some within
the President’s inner circle about the leak of a CIA operative’s name.

He has especially harsh criticism for former White House advisor Karl
Rove for misleading him about his role in the CIA case. He also
accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of being “deft . . . at
protecting her reputation,” and called Vice President Dick Cheney “the
magic man” who steered policy behind the scenes.

In a chapter titled “Selling the War,” McClellan says the
administration repeatedly “shaded the truth.” He also stated, “In the
permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of
public opinion to the president’s advantage.” In what might be the
most disturbing statement in the book (at least among those that were
released by press reports), McClellan said, “What I do know is that
war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not
necessary.”

McClellan said his motive for writing the book was this: “Like many
Americans, I am concerned about the poisonous atmosphere in
Washington. I wanted to take readers inside the White House and
provide them an open and honest look at how things went off course and
what can be learned from it. Hopefully in some small way it will
contribute to changing Washington for the better and move us beyond
the hyper-partisan environment that has permeated Washington over the
past 15 years.”

I am confident the reaction that will spew forth from both sides of
the political aisle will simply reinforce McClellan’s basic assertion.
Republicans will attempt to impugn McClellan’s credibility, while
Democrats will shout, “We told you so!”

In previous columns, I have written much regarding the poison of
deception that emanates from Washington, D.C., which is mostly due to
the preoccupation with political partisanship. It seems the only time
the Republican and Democratic parties care about “ethics” and
“honesty” is when it condemns the other party. Otherwise, life in
Washington, D.C., is exactly as McClellan describes it: a culture of
deception.

McClellan’s book will be a bitter pill to swallow. To think that the
war in Iraq was “unnecessary” creates angst and even anger in the
meekest of men. Yet, how many times have governments spent the lives
and fortunes of their people for causes and reasons that historians
would later judge to be “unnecessary”? It might even be safe to say
that most of history’s wars have been “unnecessary.”

The propensity of rulers to engage in war for personal, transient, or
even adolescent purposes is exactly why America’s Founding Fathers
created a constitutional republic in this country. In America, the
Constitution–not the President, Congress, or even the Supreme
Court–is the Supreme Law of the land. Each branch of government is to
remain separate from the other, and no branch is supposed to be able
to run roughshod over the other. It is fidelity to constitutional
government that forms the vanguard of our liberty, not to mention our
safety.

This is why our President and members of Congress take an oath to
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
They are not sworn to uphold the will of party bosses or special
interest groups, or even the whim of the people. They are required to
uphold the Constitution.

Sadly, America’s civil magistrates (especially at the federal level)
have been ignoring the Constitution for much of the 20th Century,
and–for the most part–still ignore the Constitution today. And it
has not mattered to a tinker’s dam which party has been in power. Both
major parties are equal opportunity violators of the Constitution.

None of us (including this writer) wants to believe that McClellan’s
bold assertion is true. None of us wants to believe that we are
spending trillions of hard-earned tax dollars and sending thousands of
brave soldiers and Marines (not to mention tens of thousands of
Iraqis) to their deaths “unnecessarily.” I sincerely pray that
McClellan is wrong about that.

One thing I do believe to be true, however, is this: Unless the
American people begin demanding that their civil magistrates uphold
their oaths to the Constitution, and until the American people rid
themselves of this blind loyalty to the two major political parties,
we are going to be continually subjected to “Washington’s Culture of
Deception.”

Pastor Chuck Baldwin is a regular contributor to Correctness Commentary.