Harsh Criticism of President Bush From Former White House Insider
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Tony Harris.</s>HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins. You'll see events come into the NEWSROOM live on Wednesday, May 28th. Here's what on the rundown. Iraq by the book. A former White House press secretary slamming President Bush over the Iraq war.</s>HARRIS: Florida -- critical to Hillary Clinton's long-shot chances. Political activists in court today forcing to get Florida's delegates seated.</s>COLLINS: Killed during war by an unseen enemy. Improperly grounded electrical equipment. A CNN investigation in the</s>NEWSROOM. HARRIS: He served as the public voice of the Bush White House. Today Scott McClellan is speaking out and some say selling out the Bush White House. A bombshell memoir and allegations of deception and propaganda. The response -- swift and angry. CNN's Elaine Quijano is at the White House. And Elaine, from the excerpts of the book out so far, most of the criticism seems to be leveled at some of the people serving the president.</s>ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. He does -- in fact, Scott McClellan, former White House press secretary, in this book lashes out. Here it is. It is called "What Happened." The full title, "Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." The book, 341 pages long, sending shock waves throughout Washington. In it, McClellan blasts the Bush administration for, among other things, Iraq. And on that topic, McClellan writes that the president, quote, "He and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and sustain public support during a time of war. In this regard he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security." Now, no official comment yet from the White House, but last night former Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend fired back on "AC360."</s>FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, FMR. BUSH HOMELAND SEC. ADVISER: I think people need to understand that as an adviser to the president, I or Scott have an obligation, a responsibility to voice concerns on policy issues. Scott never did that on any of these issues as best I can remember and as best I know from my White House colleagues. So it's...</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Never spoke out?</s>TOWNSEND: No. And so for him to do this now, frankly, strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous, and unprofessional.</s>QUIJANO: Now we should mention that McClellan did speak briefly to my colleague Ed Henry and said that he stands behind the accuracy of this book. Again, Tony, we are still awaiting official White House comment. We're looking for that later today -- Tony?</s>HARRIS: Well, Elaine, just a quick follow here. It's clearly not the book the administration expected as someone who traveled from Texas to Washington with the president, a Bush loyalist, we must say. The administration could not have seen this kind of criticism coming.</s>QUIJANO: Yes. You know, and that's absolutely right. You know, there were no indications of any kind of bad blood between Scott McClellan and the Bush administration when McClellan announced his resignation back in April of 2006, almost two years ago. In fact, I can recall at that time there were really some warm words exchanged between McClellan...</s>HARRIS: Yes.</s>QUIJANO: ... and President Bush. Let's take a listen to what the president had to say.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One of these days he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, job well done.</s>QUIJANO: So, the bottom line here, Tony, is what makes this memoir so particularly stunning is not necessarily just what is being written, what has been written here, but who has written it. As you point out, Scott McClellan is a formerly staunch Bush loyalist who dates back to 1999 when President Bush was then governor of Texas. They go back a long way. Certainly, a lot of people here in Washington saying they simply did not see this coming -- Tony?</s>HARRIS: It is the talker of the morning. Elaine Quijano at the White House for us. Elaine, thank you.</s>COLLINS: So who is Scott McClellan? Here's a look at his career highlights. McClellan served as spokesman for George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas. Then in 2003, McClellan replaced Ari Fleisher as White House press secretary. In April of 2006, as you just heard, McClellan announced he was resigning. At that time, President Bush praised him for, quote, "a job well done."</s>HARRIS: How the west is won. Three presidential candidates campaigning in western states today. Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain is holding a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada. He met up with President Bush for a private fundraiser in Arizona yesterday. The closed-door event raising an estimated $3 million. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama rallied supporters this afternoon at a town hall meeting in Thornton, Colorado. Hillary Clinton shifts from Montana to South Dakota, holding rallies there this afternoon and evening.</s>COLLINS: A court hearing next hour in Tampa, Florida, is part of one voter's battle to seat Florida's Democratic delegates. CNN national correspondent Susan Candiotti is in Tampa now with the very latest. This is very interesting, Susan.</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It sure is. Good morning, Heidi. This Democratic Party activist, Victor Dimaio, is back in federal court again over a lawsuit that he filed against the Democratic National Committee last August. He's taking the party to task for punishing Florida over staging its primary early. But he also claims that the party used ethnic origin and race for allowing Nevada and South Carolina to hold its primary and caucuses early because of the state's large Hispanic and black populations.</s>VICTOR DIMAIO, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: We decided this is not right, this is wrong.</s>CANDIOTTI (voice over): Political consultant Victor Dimaio and his lawyer, Michael Steinberg, the two-man team taking on the Democratic National Committee, suing to make Florida's January primary vote count.</s>DIMAIO: This is nuts. I mean this is not right. I mean how can they ignore Florida? I mean of all the things we Floridians have suffered through, through hanging chads, through Bush versus Gore, and you know, they're sticking it to us again.</s>CANDIOTTI: Their lawsuit was filed last August. Senator Bill Nelson and Congressman L.C. Hastings also sued, but their case was thrown out of court by a different judge. DNC chair Howard Dean won't budge.</s>HOWARD DEAN, DNC CHAIRMAN: You cannot violate the rules of the process and then expect to get -- be forgiven for it.</s>CANDIOTTI (on camera): Why shouldn't the DNC be able to make its own rules?</s>MICHAEL STEINBERG, ATTORNEY: But the rules have to comply with the United States constitution.</s>CANDIOTTI (voice over): Steinberg dusted off the constitution and based his case mainly on the 14th amendment. "No state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Steinberg says in 1940 the Texas Democratic Party would not allow blacks to vote in a primary and the U.S. Supreme Court making national headlines ruled in favor of black voters. He compares that case to Florida's battle with the</s>DNC. STEINBERG: Now, the Democratic Party is arguing, oh, you had a right to vote, we just weren't going to count it. But it's like saying, OK, black people can vote in the Democratic primary. We just won't count your vote. If you don't count the vote, then it does -- then it's not the right to vote.</s>DIMAIO: This is not about Victor Dimaio or even Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. This is about the poor suffering voters of Florida wanting their vote to count.</s>CANDIOTTI: So, again, the DNC says it has the constitutional right to make its own rules without interference by the courts. Now, Dimaio says that he hopes for a quick decision because, remember, on Saturday the rules committee of the DNC is meeting in Washington to try to settle Florida and Michigan's primary fiascos. And Dimaio says if he loses, he plans on appealing to the Supreme Court -- Heidi?</s>COLLINS: I bet he does. All right, Susan Candiotti, we know you'll be following that one for us as well. Thank you.</s>HARRIS: Got some startling new figures this morning on the number of U.S. troops with posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is here with details. And Barbara, good morning.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Tony. They call it the wound you cannot see, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, the stress of being in combat, and the number of troops now diagnosed with this very sad problem is reaching record levels. The army published some numbers yesterday indicating that since the war began in Afghanistan in 2003, now with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nearly 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. The jump has come really in recent years. Last year, 2007, 14,000 cases, and look at it compared to the year before, in 2006, just over 9,000 cases. And that's for all members of all military services. And what the Pentagon tells us is the real numbers could be significantly higher because these are only the cases that have been diagnosed. It's still a very tragic fact to report that many military members do not report their symptoms because they believe the stigma of seeking mental health treatment will hurt their careers. That's something Secretary Bob Gates is trying to change. He's trying to tell the troops, please, get help when you need it -- Tony?</s>HARRIS: Well, Barbara, I apologize in advance for the leading question because I kind of know what's coming here.</s>STARR: Yes.</s>HARRIS: Any more bad numbers expected to come out of the Pentagon</s>STARR: Yes, you bet, Tony. We are told that sometime this week, in fact, the army is finally going to publish the suicide numbers for its troops in the year 2007. That, too, Tony, is expected very tragically to take a jump. We will get the final numbers later this week, but every expectation is that the army will report that suicide numbers for its active duty troops reached a record level since the war began in 2007, Tony.</s>HARRIS: Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr for us this morning. Barbara, thank you.</s>COLLINS: Jacqui Jeras over at the Severe Weather Center for us today, because we are talking about more tornadoes and damage from them.</s>COLLINS: Why? Are we going to the tropics? Is that why it's getting interesting?</s>JERAS: We wish we were all going to the tropics.</s>HARRIS: Yes. And this might not be the time. All right.</s>COLLINS: Yes, it doesn't sound good.</s>HARRIS: OK.</s>COLLINS: All right, Jackie. We'll check back later. Thank you. Helping survivors in the quake zone. An iReporter's amazing story from China coming up next in the</s>NEWSROOM. ANNOUNCER: "Weather Update" brought to you by...