Scott McClellan... LIBTARD TRAITOR!!11!!!!

The right-wing has been foaming at the mouth for days about Scott McClellan deciding to come clean on 'What Happened' inside the Bush administration during the run-up to war in Iraq, and its aftermath (the Plame debacle, etc). Keep in mind that none of these people are accusing him of lying about any of this, nor are they attempting to factually refute any of his confirming-the-obvious stories... they're just pissed he wouldn't keep his ungrateful mouth shut. In the eyes of the Bush cultists, he now joins a long line of distinguished libtard traitors-- having all committed the sin of refuting the Bush administration and having good judgment about Iraq and other matters-- like Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, and Lawrence Wilkerson.

As a dirty libtard myself, I am enjoying the schadenfreude. This hit an apex last night as Scottie sat down to talk with Keith Olbermann for pretty much the entire hour. The posts at the National Review blog were hilarious to read, such as when editor Kathryn Jean Lopez ranted that "Scott McClellan has joined the antiwar mind meld about Iraq". Yep, only the deluded could ever believe the decision to invade and indefinitely occupy a Middle Eastern nation (for reasons that changed week to week) was anything less than a brilliant and flawlessly executed idea.

But perhaps more interesting has been the meta media discussion about whether than darn liberal media actually did anything around the time of invasion other than keep their mouths shut and act as passive cheerleaders for the war. Glenn Greenwald provides a great analysis of this, including such examples as the NY Times' deceitful WMD reporting vis a vis Judy Miller, the generally fawning coverage of Bush at the time, MSNBC firing Phil Donahue simply for being anti-war, and more. CNN reporter (formerly of both NBC and ABC) Jessica Yellin-- yes, there's a lot of yellin' on cable news... zing!-- summed up at the atmosphere in newsrooms at that time-

"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings," Yellin said.

"And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives--and I was not at this network at the time--but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time...."

But then a shocked Cooper jumped in, asking, "You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?"

"Not in that exact.... They wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces," Yellin said. "They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience."

This sort of fear-mode circa 2002-2003 has been widely discussed before too.

And yet the only problem the right finds with any of this is that McClellan confirmed it. Sad.