'Meet the Press' transcript for June 1, 2008

MR. TIM RUSSERT:  Our issues this Sunday:  former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan rocks Washington and rattles the White House with his scathing new book, "What Happened:  Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." Why did he say one thing at the podium and quite another in his book?  We'll ask him.  Our guest, the man who worked for George W. Bush for seven years, Scott McClellan.

Then, the Democratic National Committee agrees to seat delegations from Michigan and Florida and give each delegate a half vote.  But the Clinton campaign is very unhappy.

MR. HAROLD ICKES:  I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters.

MR. RUSSERT:  And what happens today in the Puerto Rico primary?  And Tuesday, Montana and South Dakota?  Will Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton be able to unite the Democratic Party?  With us, for the Obama campaign, former Democratic senator from South Dakota, Tom Daschle.  For the Clinton campaign, one of her senior advisers and a member of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, Harold Ickes.

But first, with us for an exclusive Sunday morning interview, the man who has had Washington buzzing all week, former press secretary to President Bush, Scott McClellan, and his new book, "What Happened."

Welcome.

MR. SCOTT McCLELLAN:  Tim, thanks for having me on today.  Glad to be here.

MR. RUSSERT:  The response has been extraordinary to this book.  You have been called by your fellow Republicans a "turncoat," "a snitch," "Benedict Arnold." Bob Dole, ranking Republican in all of Washington, sent an e-mail and said this:  "Scott.

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don't have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues.  No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, spurned on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.  In my nearly 36 years of public service, I've known a few like you.  ...

"You should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job.  That would have taken integrity and courage but then you've had--would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively.  You're a hot ticket now but don't you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"

Do you?

MR. McCLELLAN:  No.  I have a lot of respect for Senator Dole.  He was a noble public servant and spent a--time in the military.  You know, I, I think...

MR. RUSSERT:  But the feeling, the feelings clearly aren't mutual.

MR. McCLELLAN:  I understand.  And people--I knew that this book was going to spur a reaction.  This book takes aim at Washington, and there are many in Washington that were not going to be happy with it.  I knew that going in. This is an indictment of the culture in Washington.

MR. RUSSERT:  The issue that seems to be being used against you, Scott McClellan, is hypocrisy, that you said one thing at the podium and wrote another in the book.  People go back to March of 2004.  Richard Clarke, the director of counterterrorism, had left the White House, wrote a book, "Against All Enemies," and this is what Scott McClellan said about Mr. Clarke.  Let's watch.

(Videotape)

MR. McCLELLAN:  Why all the sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner?  This is one and a half years after he left the administration, and now all of the sudden he's raising these grave concerns that he claims he had.

He has written a book, and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  You could be describing yourself.

MR. McCLELLAN:  I could.  And, in fact, that is, I think, the White House reaction today about me.  Let me tell you a couple things.  One, I got caught up in the Washington permanent campaign culture just like everybody else.  I came here with high hopes that we could change Washington, that the president was a bipartisan leader in Texas.  It didn't happen.  And that's one of the things I wanted to look at in the book, is why did we go so badly off course?

In terms of Dick Clarke, I actually ran into him in New York the other night. I actually apologized to him.  I had not read the book...

MR. RUSSERT:  What did you say to him?

MR. McCLELLAN:  ...and here I was--we had a brief conversation and, and I said--I basically said, "I, I apologize for what I was saying about you then. I had not read your book."

MR. RUSSERT:  I think what people are groping for is when did you undergo this transformation, this intellectual journey, this evolution?  Ari Fleischer, your former boss, the man who you replaced at the White House, said this:  "Scott told me that this book really did change.  And he said this book ended up a lot different from the way it got started.  He told me he didn't know if he could write a book like this a year ago."

And we refer you to your book proposal, which was sent around in January of '07:  "`The Unvarnished Truth About George W. Bush:  His Former Spokesman Talks Candidly About the President, the Press, Washington Politics, and his White House Days' by Scott McClellan.  There have been a number of books written about President Bush, including many more recent ones that portray him in a very negative light.

"This book's going to take a much different look at our Nation's 43rd President.  While being supportive of the President, I want to give readers a candid look into who George W. Bush is, what he believes, why he believes it so strongly, what drives him.

"It will be an insider's account of his behind-the-scenes persona, including his decision-making style, his personal discipline, his composure under fire, his sense of humor.

"And, I will directly address myths that have been associated with him, some deliberately perpetuated by activist liberals and some created by the media, and look at the reality behind those myths."

That's not the book you wrote.

MR. McCLELLAN:  Well, actually, if you look at that whole book proposal, there are a number of items in there, issues in there that are a part of this book.  Particularly when I highlight in there the bipartisanship that, yes, absolutely, Tim, I say in the preface of the book that many of the conclusions I came to at the end were not ones that I would've embraced at the beginning, and I went through a process here to make sure I got to the truth.  And I believe I have gotten to the truth from my perspective.

MR. RUSSERT:  But after suggesting that there had been a lot of negative books about George Bush, you write this:  "Bush was a leader unable to acknowledge that he got it wrong, unwilling to grow in office by learning from his mistakes--too stubborn to change and grow." That's a very negative view of the president.

MR. McCLELLAN:  It is a true reflection of this president.  We got into the Iraq war, we went into it in a way that, as I say in the book, which was based on a "permanent campaign" mentality.  It wasn't as open and forthright as it could be, and I think that really hurt us later.  And when you go to war, you have to build bipartisan support and then you have to sustain it.  We couldn't sustain it because we were not open in the beginning, and the president could not go back and admit some of the mistakes that were made early in the, early in the buildup to the war.

MR. RUSSERT:  You write...

MR. McCLELLAN:  And I think that--I think that that hurts our troops the most because they deserve as much bipartisan support as we can get here in, in Washington, D.C., and the president failed to do that.

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