Would it have been better if he dramatically stepped to the podium one day while he was still White House press secretary and said, "We have been doing an organized propaganda campaign to deceive the American people and I resign!"? Yes, that would have been better. But 99 out of a 100 times that's not the way the real world works. You get caught up in whatever subculture you're in and it's hard to untangle yourself.

Have you ever been in a situation where you wound up doing something you were uncomfortable with because of societal pressure and then later wondered - what the hell was I doing? I don't know about you, but I certainly have.

Now, this was no little thing. This was a gigantic mistake that eventually costs thousands of lives. And yes, I would have loved if he admitted his mistakes and pointed out the lies of the Bush administration without the publicity surrounding a book. Yes, I wish he had the courage to recognize this earlier (as some like Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill did - but remember, they too were pilloried anyway).

But right now, the bottom line is that McClellan is clearly telling the truth. Everything he says matches with what has been reported and suspected before. It is an amazing insider look at the deception that went on in the Bush White House. Even his explanation of how Bush convinces himself of his own lies rings so true. His details on how Cheney and Rumsfeld ran the White House while Condoleezza Rice bowed her head matches every report we have from within the administration.

And remember, he didn't have to be this harsh to sell books. A couple of juicy details would have done the job. This was personal. Not as in a personal attack against Bush and the others in the administration. More like an attempt at personal redemption.

As McClellan says throughout the book, he liked Bush and looked up to him, so he wanted to believe what he was saying. And in the end, after so much evidence piled up - with the final coup de grace being Bush's own admission that he personally authorized the CIA leak - he couldn't do it anymore. Once outside of the Washington bubble, he began to reflect on all of the transgressions, his and those of his cohorts, and realized he had to write a truly honest account of what happened. That should be commended, no matter what came before.

One final note. People should not overlook what McClellan said about the press. That's the real lesson to take away from this book. While the Bush administration was complaining loudly about the liberal media, they were internally snickering about how much they had intimidated them. That lesson should never be forgotten. The way the Bush administration cowed the press should be an everlasting shame on the media. I wonder if instead of reacting angrily to this, whether the press corps will take away anything from this when they step out of their bubble and come to terms with their own conscience.

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