Former Former White House Press Secretary Draws Rebuke from Pentagon Papers Whistleblower

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Comments on McClellan Memoir During Utah Peace Rally

(KCPW News) Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is making the talk-show rounds with his tell-all memoir about his years with the Bush Administration. Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg is grateful the former insider is talking now about his misgivings with the way the Iraq War was sold to the public, but wonders what McClellan could have accomplished if he spoke out while on the president's payroll:

"I'll buy his book, I'm glad he's selling us that information now, some years later, but I would also like people inside reflect - and journalists reflect, and you reflect - on how many lives Scott McClellan could have saved if he told us that earlier, at the time of the war."

Ellsberg made those comments during a peace rally Wednesday night at the City & County Building that coincided with President Bush's visit to Utah to raise money on behalf of John McCain. Ellsberg was labeled a traitor by the Nixon Administration for leaking thousands of documents to the New York Times, an act that is seen by many as helping to end the Vietnam War. He faced a lifetime in jail, but the former military analyst was eventually exonerated and helped to end Nixon's presidency:

"The crimes against me, in particular, turned out to have been a vulnerability of his [Nixon] that actually brought him out of office and made the [Vietnam] war endable a year later. So one person can scare these people with the truth."

In 2004, Ellsberg formed the Truth-Telling Project to encourage government insiders to be whistleblowers as an act of patriotism.

Use the media player below to hear a podcast of Ellsberg's Wednesday night speech.

 

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