About That Other Press Secretary...

Today's big story is Scott McClellan's burn-all memoir, now in pre-release, full-smear circulation around the leftosphere.

I don't pay too much attention to these past-staffers' exposes, mostly because they're opportunistic, undignified, and unenlightening.

The memoir book-tours do tell us a lot about poliltics, however, especially left-wing media hypocrisy. Via Gateway Pundit, it turns out Ari Fleischer, press secretary in the first Bush administration, got little play in the press when his book came out in 2005:

Before Scott McClellan was President Bush’s Press Secretary, there was Ari Fleischer, and when Fleischer left the White House he wrote his own book, “Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House.” Unlike McClellan, Fleischer did not take pot shots at his former employer, but did include some telling examples of the liberal bias of press.

Perhaps not surprisingly, then, while McClellan’s yet-to-be-officially-published book has already become the liberal media’s favorite story of the day, a Nexis search shows that Fleischer’s memoir generated virtually no broadcast or cable news coverage, and no front-page coverage in the nation’s newspapers.

Indeed, TV coverage the week after Fleischer’s book was released was limited to just eight interviews, none given that much prominence: one on NBC’s Today (7:43am), one on CBS’s Early Show (last half-hour), one on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, two on CNN (Lou Dobbs Tonight and Anderson Cooper 360) and three on FNC (Big Story, Special Report, and Hannity & Colmes).

So, what's the big deal now? Attack Bush, damage the GOP, what else?

Fleisher's not a Brutus-like figure, of course, slurring his former boss. He's thus likely to make a big comeback in GOP politics for his upstanding demeanor out of office. The same can't be said for McClellan, which is too bad for him, since the lefties never liked him so much in the first place, and they'll just use this Janus-faced media extravaganza for their own purposes.

Jules Crittenden touches on this a bit:

Ha. Someone else is bitter. The myth sometimes known as Glenn Greenwald indignantly cites McClellan in a bitter denunciation of the myth of the liberal media.

See also Lynn Sweet, "Why Didn't Scott McClellan Quit if He Thought He Was Selling Bush Iraq War Propaganda."

And Captain Ed, "Heckuva job, Scotty: McClellan writes a book; Update: AOL Hot Seat Poll added; Update: McClellan chastised tell-all tomes in 2004."