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NEW YORK Early last week, PublicAffairs posted the contents of its spring 2008 catalog on the Web, the first step in the publicity roll-out of books to be published between March and August. One book, Scott McClellan's account of his experiences as press secretary to President George W. Bush, caught the eye of the publishing trade press, and twenty-four hours later the book had become a media sensation.
Here is a glimpse of what that means: Google News recorded 625 stories in which I was a PublicAffairs spokesman, based on a quote to Bloomberg News, the first agency to reach me. There were sixteen pieces on CNN. Household broadcast names called me in the office and at home for comment. By Thanksgiving Day, the furor had ebbed, assuring that McClellan's book will get a close read when it is published, and providing for this column a first-hand look at today's frenetic viral media.
The memoir is called "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington." The headline on the catalog page says: "With unprecedented candor, one of George W. Bush's closest aides takes readers behind the scenes of the Bush presidency and what exactly happened to take it off course." On the facing page was this fragment from the book:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice-President, the President's chief of staff and the President himself."
Re-reading the excerpt now, I can see why it was so exciting. But what was amazing about the response was that it became a huge story before anyone pursued its context. McClellan is still at work on his book. At PublicAffairs, it is not unusual for writers to be finishing their books at the time we announce publication because the sell-in to stores has to take place months before the books actually arrive. The large chains want about six months to prepare for release, deciding on how many copies to take and what kind of promotion to support.
The chapter cited in the catalog has been drafted. It is a meticulous account of the period at the start of McClellan's tenure, when he had to handle the flap over the disclosure that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA operative, collateral damage in the Washington fracas over blame for the Iraq war blunders.
McClellan defended the White House then because, aside from that being his job, he believed what he was told by senior officials, two of whom we now know were lying. "What Happened" is McClellan's forthright telling of what, on reflection, took place in that period as the justification for the Iraq war unraveled, Katrina became a national disgrace, and overall, the Bush administration's claim to candor and competency was destroyed.
Before taking on his book, my colleagues and I talked to White House correspondents and reporters in Texas and were assured that if McClellan said he would write a book without fear or favor, he would. And he is. (The Associated Press put out a story under the headline "Aides Choose Royalties over Loyalties," listing the press secretaries who have written memoirs for large advances. I can assure you, as anyone familiar with PublicAffairs will attest, that lucre is not McClellan's incentive to work with us.)
Back to the media maelstrom. The first reaction to the excerpt was that McClellan, by saying they were "involved," was accusing the president and vice-president of deliberate deception. The rejoicing among administration critics was palpable. Senators Schumer and Dodd and the outed Valerie Plame herself were immediately available to denounce the president. This is the first line of pages of Google News entries: "Here's hoping McClellan's book brings down Bush" (Aspen Times); "So, did Bush knowingly tell McClellan to lie?" (Kansas.com); "Congress, ask Bush: Did you order Scott McClellan to lie?" (Salon).
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