Opinion: Scott McClellan screws up his own talking points about talking points

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Scott McClellan, former White House press secretary and author of the disputed tell-all book about the Bush White House’s misleading ways, seems to have been misleading some recent viewers himself.

McClellan is still traipsing around the cable TV circuit peddling his book. Last week on MSNBC’s ‘Hardball’ he was asked if the White House saw Fox News as a ‘tool’ for getting President Bush’s message out.

‘I make a distinction between the journalists and ... the commentators,’ McClellan said. ‘There were commentators and other pundits of Fox News that were helpful to the White House.... Certainly we got talking points to those people.’

He mentioned Bill O’Reilly in the mix.

Oh, boy, McClellan didn’t factor in O’Reilly’s response.

‘I never once received a talking point from the White House, so McClellan is not telling the truth about me,’ O’Reilly responded on his own ‘O’Reilly Factor’ on Fox. ‘Should I be angry? Naaah. But I have to call a lie a lie.’

Then O’Reilly got McClellan on his radio show, ‘The Radio Factor’: ‘The truth is, I messed up,’ McClellan hastily explained to his host. ‘I was specifically not trying to single anyone out, including you.’

Our Swamp friend Mark Silva has the rest of McClellan’s yarn here.

-- Andrew Malcolm