Dole to McClellan: You're a 'miserable creature'
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/05/30/art.dole.gi.jpg caption="Dole is not happy with McClellan."]
(CNN) - Bob Dole is furious with Scott McClellan's public criticisms of the Bush administration, telling the former White House Press Secretary in an e-mail Thursday he is a "miserable creature" who is "spurred on by greed."
"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in the personal e-mail. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."
Dole spokesman Michael Marshall confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail, first reported by Politico and obtained by CNN.
Dole, the former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, also tells McClellan he is likely looking to "clean up" as "the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm."
"When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me,'" he wrote. "Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years."
Dole also made clear he has no plans to read the book.
"I have no intention of reading your 'exposé' because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job," he wrote. "That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively."
"You're a hot ticket now but don't you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"
Related: McClellan hints at supporting Obama
This thread leaves no doubt that we put more money into the penal system in this country than our schools. Is it too much to ask that the morons who leave their irrelevant little comments on this site use proper grammer?
Wow, that is the most life Dole has shown in years. It is easy to say McClellan should have spoken up earlier while he was at the White House, but don't you think he would have been squashed in discredited back then?
The furor over this book seems to correlate with the level of truth of its contents.
What Bob Dole is really saying to Scott McClellan is – you broke the 11th commandment, Scott. "Thou shalt not speak unkindly about a fellow Republican" – even when that fellow Republican wrongfully takes his country to war!
McClellan is in deep doo doo--he's going to see all kinds of problems--both legal and personal including some unlikely accidents--I guess his daddy never told him not to mess with Uncle Sam.
I've said it before and here it is again: Republicans are a perverted cult!
This is just another example of this adminastrtion being the modern day nazis that they are. Anyone who speaks out againts them is held up in public to be a traitor. The real tratior to this country sits in the white house every day. Him and his cronnies have sat there and raped this country of its soul, and its future, while they laugh thier way to the bank. Someone please tell the truth about Bush, and the band of liars he has working for him. Just look at all the pay-off jobs anyone who has left him , and keep thier mouth shut get. It is so clear how he works. This man should be given prais for his honesty. It may be to little to late, but he is trying. Thank God its only six more months.
That viagra must really be working today.
McClellan is a true American!!! Seems he cares enough to tell the truth! I want someone in Washington that will be open and tell the truth and is not tied to Washington lobbiests or insiders. Go Obama!!! Seems like some of the really honest republicans are coming over to Obama's camp–amazing–honesty in Washington and someone who might really care about the USA!!
I wonder how much is truth in the book and how much is exageration. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. McClellan might have his 2 min. of fame now but pay the price after.
Bush and Cheney should be impeached for their High Crimes and Misdemeanors while in office. The American media, for the most part, does not report civilian casualties in Iraq. Foreign media sources have estimated the total deaths of Iraqi women, children and other non-combatants to be well over a half-million lives. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and others would be brought before The Hague for Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide if they weren't American. These are the people who Bob Dole supports?
Has Dole re-joined the 8th grade or something?
He hasn't even read the book and has probably never met McClellan – why does his opinion even mean anything?
I also noticed that he attacks the man, but not the message. None of McClellan's critics have been able to point to anything in the book and refute it with facts of their own. Even when specifically pressed to do so. That hardly gives their words any weight.
Dole sounds like the miserable creature to me.
Good riddance Scott!
I think he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. I worked with someone like that – someone who would smile in your face right before they stabbed you in the back. I wouldn't be surprised if all the information in the book is either lies or embellishments of the truth. He sure is cozying up to liberals real quick!
Good luck Scott, I hope you make tons of money on your book since that's obviously more important to you than the truth.
Um, He's a Republican, what do they expect? They eat their young for christs sake!!!
I think Bob is exhibiting all the symptoms of one of the rare, but tragic, side effects of Viagra: elevated hyperbole
I believe this guy is telling the truth and that is why such hateful comments are coming from the White House Administration. And instead of the media trying to case doubt they need to do their jobs. What makes the President exempt from scrutiny. Wrong is Wrong and Bush is all wrong and anyone voting for McCain in November is ALL WRONG!!!
like anything you say is relevant Dole....I say kudos to Scott for bringing more credibility to the truth
*Birds of a feather flock together*
Anyone who is thinking of voting for McSame reread the first post on this post by a real honorable vet!!!!
Bob Dole. What a hoot. This is the man who said in 1996 that the movie "Trainspotting" glorified drug use, but he didn't see the movie. Isn't it time you retired, Bob?
So Dole says McClellan is an ingrate?? Dole, if you believe McClellan is lying, call him a LIAR and tell us why you belive he is.
By calling him an ingrate, Dole is makes it clear he thinks a cabinet member's loyalty to his president should supercede loyalty to the nation! Talk about screwed-up ethics, how dare he call someone else a slime. Dole, I am so glad you are otta there!!
Republicans are MAD because Scott did the right thing. I love you Scott and you are so fine.
'Biting The Hand That Fed Me,'"!!!!???? you mean Americans Mr Dole, right? that said, I agrre with Dole about one fact , if he wasn't happy with Bush's policies he should have said something ages ago...NOW IT'S TOO LATE... so to me McCllelan is nothing more than SHIP-JUMPER.
OBAMA or HILLARY 2008 and no one else
Please post my anti-Obama, pro-Hillary opinion
Scott was for Bush- now he is for Obama.
Can you trust his ability to discern a candidate's TRUE nature?
Hillary needs to take it to the convention. She has more delegates than all the white male candidates of the past- like Ted Kennedy- who took it to the convention.
This is her RIGHT, under the rules of the democratic party.
Why are we pushing the woman out early, so that we can hand the nomination to the black man? We allowed all the previous white male competitors their right to campaign. Why is the party and the media bashing Clinton? Afraid that Obama can't cut it in NOV so knock Hillary out to give him an edge?
Won't work- just alienating the HRC supporters- the 17-20 million of them.
Yknow, I'm not a big republican, and I absolutely loathe George Bush, and have loathed him from Day One.
But Dole is right. If this guy felt so strongly about it, he should have just gone to the press straight away and told the truth – before this war got even more out of hand. Now, had McClennan pulled a "Stephen Colbert", and just started napalming the administration right from the Press Corps Podium, live on CNN....
THEN that'd be pretty spectacular.
When has Bob Dole mattered in the past 10 years?
When Bob Dole, one of the nicest and most respected leaders in our country chews you out you know you are a real jerk.