One of the pleasures of watching Scott McClellan is his sheer ordinariness. In the era of West Wing, the meritocracy, and the "overclass" (my new favorite expression, thank you Samuel Freedman), McClellan is an ordinary Joe. He's pudgy and not all that smart. He's also genuine and honest and likeable. His great achievement already is taking a truth well-known to us pointy-heads on the internet, that the war was waged not for WMD but for "ideology," and bringing it home. Paul Wolfowitz admitted as much in Vanity Fair years ago. Glenn Kessler and George Packer and Richard Clarke stated as much in their books. Walt and Mearsheimer showed us the intellectual scaffolding.
I was always amazed that Americans had tolerated that great hoodwinking. But all those guys are intellectuals writing in the end about policy. Comes now McClellan, an ordinary guy who has a noble reason for his betrayal, and we all want to hear his story. That personal tale is bringing the point home in a simple affecting way. For a good story is more compelling than any investigation (let alone any great theory; check this one out). At long last, the chickens are coming home to roost. Before long the networks will be doing features on the neoconservatives, and the president and reporters that loved them. Next stop, the Hague.
