I just started it this afternoon. So far it's fascinating. Scott McClellan was the voice of the Bush administration for years; now he's one of its harshest critics.
Conservative pundits come in a limited variety of flavors: childish, such as Ann Coulter. Sentimental and wisful, like Peggy Noonan. Or Hannity, who wears his ignorance like a medal. On the fringes you have the blinding smarts of George Will and the unassailable pragmatism of Tony Blankley.
McClellan is not a pundit. He's a former fratboy, a fraternity president, in fact.
He's been mired in a culture that considers intellectual achievement a source of shame, and he never mentions his academic credentials. His sources of inspiration are people he knows personally. He mentions time in college, but very little aside from an ugly hazing incident.
He speaks with a kind of Fox News shorthand, and that can be confusing. The word "authentic," for example, appears many times when he lauds men he admires. It can mean a manner of speaking, a way of working a room, or a style of dress (business suit and a cowboy hat is "authentic Texas style").
To me he comes across as sincerely bitter. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes we don't know we make them until years later. He describes the heady feeling the Bush administration gave its members early on: being a part of something huge, of what might have turned out to be the greatest administration in the history of the country. It seems bizarre now, but that's just how angry conservatives were with Clinton.
In this day and age, it's strange to look at Bush through the eyes of someone who found him admirable. I haven't reached the point in the book yet where things get ugly. McClellan's descriptions of the president do seem inspiring, a man genial enough to really be the "uniter, not a divider" that the Daily Show mocks so frequently.
To be continued; I'm only on chapter five.
