McClellan’s Publisher Does Damage Control

Since the news broke about former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s new book, there has been a curious lack of commentary on the topic in certain mainstream U.S. news outlets and only a vague official reaction from the White House.

Meanwhile, McClellan’s publisher is attempting to do some damage control with regard to what the author (who apparently hasn’t finished the book yet) actually says about President Bush in “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington.”

Also, the BBC reported Valerie Plame’s reaction to McClellan’s story on Wednesday.

MSNBC:

Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan’s book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McClellan, “Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him.”

Osnos says when McClellan went before the White House press corps in 2003 to publicly exonerate Libby and Rove, the problem was that his statement was not true. Osnos said the president told McClellan what “he thought to be the case.” But, he says, McClellan believes, “the president didn’t know it was not true.”

Osnos says the quotes which appeared on the Public Affairs Books website were part of the roll out of the book catalogues for the spring printings. And he says McClellan had not finished the manuscript for the memoir yet and was working under deadline to have the book completed for the April publishing.

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