Dogging Scotty

I love this piece by Jay Rosen on Scotty McClellan:

McClellan's specialty was not lying, or the traditional art of spin but what I have called "strategic non-communication." Lying we understand, spin we have to come to grasp. Non-communication we still do not appreciate; its purpose is to make executive power less legible. Only a stooge figure would be willing to suffer the very public humiliations that such a policy requires of the man in the briefing room.

McClellan was often described as "robotic" because he would mindlessly repeat some empty formula he had concocted in anticipation of reporters' questions. The point here was to underline how pointless it was to even ask questions of the Bush White House.

Rosen quotes David Addington on the theory of the unitary executive: "We're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop." Any historian seeking to define this presidency should take note of that admission.