Does Loyalty Really Trump INTEGRITY?
I don't think so. No.
But it seems I and this author are in the minority, unfortunately.
by Stephen Rose
It’s hard to express just how disgusted I get when hearing this “loyalty to the President while he is still in office” crap! We’ve repeatedly been the recipients of this faulty logic as various former members of the Bush Administration have been unabashedly attacked for saying anything negative about their previous employers, the President and his staff – names such as Richard Clarke, Paul O’Neill, Joseph Wilson, and now Scott McClellan come to mind. How clearly can it be stated -- The loyalty of any government employee is ultimately to the United States of America, not to any politicians or leaders, or to the offices they hold! Any government office is only as important as the person who holds it. Though the oath taken by the President is to the nation, and the oath of the military is to the President, the implication of the latter is that the President will be loyal to the nation. If he is not, that oath, and any loyalty to him is forfeit.
I’m surely hopeful this is self-explanatory, and that there is no need to iterate Common Sense Ethics 101. I’m appalled that there is an existing mindset that insists one be loyal to one’s boss, rather than to truth and integrity. One of the reasons I stopped watching any and all Mafia movies years ago is because I got terminally fed up with hearing about their dubious “loyalty and honor,” and it’s “just business.” My answer to this absurd nonsense is best articulated by Charles Dickens: "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" What a concept!
It’s amusing to listen to all the White House and right wing pundits in all their present perplexity. Why didn’t former Presidential Press Secretary McClellan speak out before? How dare he say anything while the President is still in office? Why is he speaking out now at this critical time before the 2008 national elections? This isn’t the Scott McClellan I knew. It’s all so puzzling. Yada yada yada. And, I find it quite intriguing that the whole right wing seems to be equally and collectively puzzled at the same time. Is this just a major coincidence?
Perhaps all these pundits weren’t aware of the Scott McClellan that grew a pair, the man who decided that truth and integrity trump loyalty to people who don’t deserve it. And maybe he believes the American people should be informed about the observations and perceptions of a Bush insider before the 2008 election while it might do some good, especially since John McCain is running as a Bush clone. Will McCain be hurt by all this? I certainly hope so! Also, it takes time to write a book; it is not something that is accomplished overnight.
Some claim McClellan didn’t know enough. Well, he sure was closer to this presidency and the goings on in the White House than Bob Woodward, whose unflattering take on the Bush Administration in “State of Denial: Bush at War Part III,” has been taken quite seriously. I’ve also heard other pundits exclaim that there is nothing new in McClellan’s revelations. What McClellan has accomplished, and which is extremely important, is to affirm all the other works that have exposed the corruption in this White House. His position as a White House insider and close Bush loyalist gives great import to what he has to say.
Though I didn’t care much for Scott McClellan while he was the Press Secretary, the reason was because he represented nothing more than a Bush mouthpiece. And though I didn’t believe he came off as particularly accomplished while holding that position, compared to Dana Perino he appears in retrospect quite brilliant. In her, we have a Press Secretary who didn’t even know about the Cuban Missile Crisis; this gives her a political IQ of about room temperature. One has to wonder how often she is being lied to by her bosses? Perhaps, to McClellan’s credit, he often appeared as less than certain because he was indeed conflicted. He was very loyal to a man he still says he admires, but at the same time he was beginning to smell the rot of fish emanating from the oval office. And this had to be greatly exacerbated by being the person called upon to sell that same rotten fish to the American public. Not an easy or comfortable sell, at least not for a man of conscience.
Perhaps McClellan is now exonerating himself. It takes great courage and integrity at this juncture to do what he has done. At the moment, he is a man without many friends. Those blind Bush Loyalists and serial liars still defending this miserable Administration certainly have no love for McClellan today, and there are still many who look upon him with distaste, remembering his performance as the Administrations lap dog/liaison person. I for one, am extremely grateful that he has come out and affirmed what so many of us have known for quite a few years now, and that which so many others continue to expose, namely that Bush et al lied about reasons for invading Iraq, and blithely disseminated misinformation and chronic misdirection to justify same.
In their defense, the White House gives us the latest rationale for invading a sovereign nation without real cause – the policy of “Imperialistic Democracy,” which McClellan labels, “a philosophy of coercive democracy.” There have been so many justifications/rationalizations for this war. First there was the Hussein has WMDs mantra. (Well of course he had chemical and biological agents, the ones we supplied him with in the 1980s.The nuclear threat along with the “mushroom cloud” turned out to be totally bogus.) Then we had the “Saddam Hussein is an evil man and has evil sons” argument.This was followed by Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush actually had the temerity to publicly and embarrassingly state that it is “better to fight our enemies in Iraq than here.” I wonder just how many Iraqis appreciated that we were fighting in their nation, and allowing their nation to be destroyed, their citizens to be killed and maimed, so that we didn’t have to fight “our war” in our own country, all the while doing it in the name of “Iraqi freedom?” How’s that for farcical and outrageous?
It’s high time that people in this nation “get” that you can’t force democracy on any nation. Democracy only occurs when the people themselves are ready for it, and they themselves are the motivating force to make it happen.
Personally, I want to say thank you Mr. McClellan. I’m still angry that you allowed yourself to look the other way when you were Press Secretary, and that you waited so long to reveal the truth, or that it took you so long to perceive it. But, I’m so very grateful that you not only finally had your necessary epiphany in time to inform the people of this nation before the next national election, but that you have the extreme courage to go public with it. It’s never too late to find out “What Happened!”
Though Mr. McClellan will lose some friends, he has gained my admiration, as well as all others who are desperate for the truth at a time when that has become a dirty word. George Orwell so accurately stated, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Thank you Mr. McClellan for setting the proper example!
I can only hope that Colin Powell and several others who have participated firsthand in the worst presidency in our history will also grow a pair and follow Scott McClellan’s example, and while it can still make a difference!
A citizen’s loyalty should be to the United States of America, not to the temporary occupants of government agencies… PERIOD!
Stephen Rose writes a political blog for the Paradise Post Newspaper in California
But it seems I and this author are in the minority, unfortunately.
by Stephen Rose
It’s hard to express just how disgusted I get when hearing this “loyalty to the President while he is still in office” crap! We’ve repeatedly been the recipients of this faulty logic as various former members of the Bush Administration have been unabashedly attacked for saying anything negative about their previous employers, the President and his staff – names such as Richard Clarke, Paul O’Neill, Joseph Wilson, and now Scott McClellan come to mind. How clearly can it be stated -- The loyalty of any government employee is ultimately to the United States of America, not to any politicians or leaders, or to the offices they hold! Any government office is only as important as the person who holds it. Though the oath taken by the President is to the nation, and the oath of the military is to the President, the implication of the latter is that the President will be loyal to the nation. If he is not, that oath, and any loyalty to him is forfeit.
I’m surely hopeful this is self-explanatory, and that there is no need to iterate Common Sense Ethics 101. I’m appalled that there is an existing mindset that insists one be loyal to one’s boss, rather than to truth and integrity. One of the reasons I stopped watching any and all Mafia movies years ago is because I got terminally fed up with hearing about their dubious “loyalty and honor,” and it’s “just business.” My answer to this absurd nonsense is best articulated by Charles Dickens: "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" What a concept!
It’s amusing to listen to all the White House and right wing pundits in all their present perplexity. Why didn’t former Presidential Press Secretary McClellan speak out before? How dare he say anything while the President is still in office? Why is he speaking out now at this critical time before the 2008 national elections? This isn’t the Scott McClellan I knew. It’s all so puzzling. Yada yada yada. And, I find it quite intriguing that the whole right wing seems to be equally and collectively puzzled at the same time. Is this just a major coincidence?
Perhaps all these pundits weren’t aware of the Scott McClellan that grew a pair, the man who decided that truth and integrity trump loyalty to people who don’t deserve it. And maybe he believes the American people should be informed about the observations and perceptions of a Bush insider before the 2008 election while it might do some good, especially since John McCain is running as a Bush clone. Will McCain be hurt by all this? I certainly hope so! Also, it takes time to write a book; it is not something that is accomplished overnight.
Some claim McClellan didn’t know enough. Well, he sure was closer to this presidency and the goings on in the White House than Bob Woodward, whose unflattering take on the Bush Administration in “State of Denial: Bush at War Part III,” has been taken quite seriously. I’ve also heard other pundits exclaim that there is nothing new in McClellan’s revelations. What McClellan has accomplished, and which is extremely important, is to affirm all the other works that have exposed the corruption in this White House. His position as a White House insider and close Bush loyalist gives great import to what he has to say.
Though I didn’t care much for Scott McClellan while he was the Press Secretary, the reason was because he represented nothing more than a Bush mouthpiece. And though I didn’t believe he came off as particularly accomplished while holding that position, compared to Dana Perino he appears in retrospect quite brilliant. In her, we have a Press Secretary who didn’t even know about the Cuban Missile Crisis; this gives her a political IQ of about room temperature. One has to wonder how often she is being lied to by her bosses? Perhaps, to McClellan’s credit, he often appeared as less than certain because he was indeed conflicted. He was very loyal to a man he still says he admires, but at the same time he was beginning to smell the rot of fish emanating from the oval office. And this had to be greatly exacerbated by being the person called upon to sell that same rotten fish to the American public. Not an easy or comfortable sell, at least not for a man of conscience.
Perhaps McClellan is now exonerating himself. It takes great courage and integrity at this juncture to do what he has done. At the moment, he is a man without many friends. Those blind Bush Loyalists and serial liars still defending this miserable Administration certainly have no love for McClellan today, and there are still many who look upon him with distaste, remembering his performance as the Administrations lap dog/liaison person. I for one, am extremely grateful that he has come out and affirmed what so many of us have known for quite a few years now, and that which so many others continue to expose, namely that Bush et al lied about reasons for invading Iraq, and blithely disseminated misinformation and chronic misdirection to justify same.
In their defense, the White House gives us the latest rationale for invading a sovereign nation without real cause – the policy of “Imperialistic Democracy,” which McClellan labels, “a philosophy of coercive democracy.” There have been so many justifications/rationalizations for this war. First there was the Hussein has WMDs mantra. (Well of course he had chemical and biological agents, the ones we supplied him with in the 1980s.The nuclear threat along with the “mushroom cloud” turned out to be totally bogus.) Then we had the “Saddam Hussein is an evil man and has evil sons” argument.This was followed by Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bush actually had the temerity to publicly and embarrassingly state that it is “better to fight our enemies in Iraq than here.” I wonder just how many Iraqis appreciated that we were fighting in their nation, and allowing their nation to be destroyed, their citizens to be killed and maimed, so that we didn’t have to fight “our war” in our own country, all the while doing it in the name of “Iraqi freedom?” How’s that for farcical and outrageous?
It’s high time that people in this nation “get” that you can’t force democracy on any nation. Democracy only occurs when the people themselves are ready for it, and they themselves are the motivating force to make it happen.
Personally, I want to say thank you Mr. McClellan. I’m still angry that you allowed yourself to look the other way when you were Press Secretary, and that you waited so long to reveal the truth, or that it took you so long to perceive it. But, I’m so very grateful that you not only finally had your necessary epiphany in time to inform the people of this nation before the next national election, but that you have the extreme courage to go public with it. It’s never too late to find out “What Happened!”
Though Mr. McClellan will lose some friends, he has gained my admiration, as well as all others who are desperate for the truth at a time when that has become a dirty word. George Orwell so accurately stated, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Thank you Mr. McClellan for setting the proper example!
I can only hope that Colin Powell and several others who have participated firsthand in the worst presidency in our history will also grow a pair and follow Scott McClellan’s example, and while it can still make a difference!
A citizen’s loyalty should be to the United States of America, not to the temporary occupants of government agencies… PERIOD!
Stephen Rose writes a political blog for the Paradise Post Newspaper in California
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