SCOTT McCLELLAN IS NOT the first presidential insider to astonish his former employer with a hit job. Even George Washington was stung by a critical pamphlet from a secretary of state he fired. George Stephanopoulos exposed the monstrous ego of Bill Clinton in All Too Human. There has been some criticism in the stream of memoirs from officials who have left the Bush Adminstration. But McClellan's memoir of his time as White House press secretary is the first damning account from someone who has been with Bush since the Texas days and was regarded as a true believer.

McClellan went to Washington with Bush when he was elected and after serving as deputy press secretary was the President's official spokesman from 2003-06. His story is of the great hopes he had that Bush would be a president who would do things differently, and how these hopes were dashed. After promising to change the tone in Washington, McClellan charges, Bush allowed partisan business to continue as usual.

A central accusation is that the White House governs as if in permanent campaign mode, leading to a lack of candour, honesty and transparency in government that erodes public trust. In so doing Bush has continued the bad habits of the Clinton Administration; indeed he “became embroiled in political manoevring that was equally unsavoury, if not worse.” McClellan admits that he himself shares the blame for failing to display the wisdom or courage to be more open and honest with the country.

Much of the administration's political manipulation related to the decision to invade Iraq. The central drama is an episode that was emblematic of the White House's aggression. When the former ambassador Joseph Wilson claimed that the White House had misled the country in making the case for invading Iraq, the identity of his wife, a covert CIA official, was leaked to the media. Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist and Scooter Libby, senior aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney, told McClellan they were not involved in the leak and he unwittingly passed this lie on to the media.

When it later emerged that Rove and Libby were involved, McClellan's credibility was shot to pieces. He had to go naked into the briefing room, where he could do little except adopt a defensive crouch as reporters savaged him.

Although McClellan criticises the media for failing to examine the justifications for war adequately, his most scathing comments are reserved for the chief protagonists. Bush is a leader whose style is “based more on instinct than deep intellectual debate”. He is “headstrong”, shies away from openness and embraces secrecy. Iraq was an enterprise on which he gambled his whole reputation because he believed that only a wartime president can achieve greatness. Bush will not admit a mistake, is “too stubborn to change and grow” and crippled by self-deception so bad that on the question of whether or not he took cocaine he once said: “I honestly don't remember.”

Bush surrounds himself with advisers who fail to recognise “how potentially harmful his instinctual leadership and limited intellectual curiosity can be when it comes to crucial decisions”. McClellan sees Rove as a ruthless, unscrupulous operator who pushes the envelope of what is permissible ethically or legally. “To him politics is a contact sport.” Cheney is unable to contain “his deep-seated certitude, even arrogance - to the detriment of the President”. Condoleezza Rice is blamed for accommodating Bush's instincts rather than “questioning them or educating him”. But “no matter what went wrong, she was somehow able to keep her hands clean”.

McClellan is not a dazzling writer. The first time he set foot in the White House is “definitely a moment when I was wowed”. He can be repetitive and the reader cries out for more colour. The glimpses he does give are fascinating. In the minutes after the second plane hit the World Trade Centre, when the whole world was glued to TV, Bush ordered the set in a holding room in a Florida school where he was to be turned off so he could focus. When McClellan goes to see Bush to discuss his resignation as spokesman, he finds himself consoling the President, who bursts into tears.

The impression left is of someone underequipped for the shark-infested waters in which he swam, who will be remembered more for his bestselling memoir than for his ability on the podium. He has been attacked by erstwhile colleagues who have asked why he never expressed misgivings while he was in the White House. Why didn't he resign if he had such problems with the approach of the team he was on?

Whatever McClellan's personal journey to the conclusions he has reached, the conclusions themselves are worth reading. Much of what he has to say about Bush is what we suspected, but it comes from someone who was actually there; not quite in the innermost circle of Bush's closest four or five advisers, but certainly in the next circle of influence. He provides a compelling account of how not to go about the job of being President of the United States. Whether Bush will be as honest about his shortcomings when it comes to memoir writing remains to be seen.

What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong With Washington by Scott McClellan
Public Affairs, £16.99; 368pp Buy the book here

Extract

Throughout the campaign, building public support by making the strongest possible case for war was the top priority, regardless of whether or not it was the most intellectually honest approach to the issue of war and peace. Message discipline sometimes meant avoiding forthrightness - for example, evasively dismissing questions about the risks of war as “speculation,” since the decision to go to war supposedly had not yet been made. In Washington's hyperpartisan atmosphere, candor was viewed as too risky; critics could easily twist and manipulate words to their advantage, undermining the well-planned strategy ...

The war would become an increasingly challenging problem for the administration ... Questions about the deliberate deception about the case for war would hover over it all. And the truth would be caught in the political crossfire.

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