Ex-Bush spokesman: White House fed war propaganda to a "complicit" media

If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq, he writes. The collapse of the administrations rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. ... In this case, the liberal media didnt live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.

Significantly, in their main articles on McClellans book, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post, which together played the most influential roles in selling the war, chose to quote this passage.

Elsewhere, McClellan describes the press as complicit enablers in the White Houses carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval in the drive to war. It was guilty, he says, of spreading distortions, half-truths, and occasionally outright lies.