Bush press man: we lied, and lied, and lied

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan (right) is ready to blow the lid off the Bush administration with an astonishing admission that not only did he lie for his masters, but was told to do so by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush chief of staff Andrew Card, chief political adviser Karl Rove and Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby. That's a potential Royal Flush in terms of Washington scandal.

The allegation comes in an extract from a memoir McClellan is writing for the publisher PublicAffairs, and posted as a teaser on the publisher's website yesterday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information," McClellan writes. "And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so."

At issue was the White House role in illegally exposing the identity of a clandestine CIA officer, Valerie Plame. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in jail after being found guilty of lying and obstruction of justice. The core of the scandal was about who in the White House gave Plame's identity to the right-wing columnist Robert Novak, a move which was part of the Bush campaign to convince Americans that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. More...