"Total Crap"

That's how former White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett describes the allegations in former Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new hit piece book:

(CNN) — Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegations that the media was soft on the White House are "total crap," adding that advisers of President Bush are "bewildered and puzzled" by the allegations in McClellan's new book.

"It's almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience," Bartlett said of McClellan. "We're hearing from a completely different person we didn't have any insight into."

Bartlett added that intimates of the President feel McClellan has violated his trust. "Part of the role of being a trusted adviser is to honor that trust," said Bartlett. "It's not your place now to go out" and criticize the President like this.

"What did he really believe when he was serving as press secretary?" Bartlett asked.

While he said McClellan himself has to "answer as to motive" for writing the book now, Bartlett said, "I do question his judgment."

Bartlett said the bewilderment stems from "Scott's decision to publicly air these deep misgivings he's never shared privately or publicly" with fellow Bush insiders. "To do it now, through a book, is a mistake," he added.

Bartlett asserted that McClellan did not play a major role in key events, noting that the former aide was serving as deputy press secretary for domestic issues during the run-up to the war in Iraq, raising questions about how McClellan could claim the President used "propaganda" to sell the war.

"I don't think he was in a position to know this," Bartlett said flatly. He said it's "troubling" that McClellan is now "gives credibility to every left-wing attack" on anecdotes that are "either thinly-sourced or not witnessed by him" in the White House.

From what I'm reading it appears that either McClellan was a deeply disturbed individual during his time in the White House and bottled up his anger so well he usually looked catatonic in the press briefings, or some lefty editor got ahold of him and decided to use him to provide some sort of thin or non-existent sourcing to confirm every lefty conspiracy theory out there. From an interview I heard with Karl Rove, McClellan couldn't possibly have known what was discussed in some meetings he wrote about, but still speculated and inferred subjects that he wasn't privy too. His editor apparently didn't find it necessary to obtain any further proof.

This book will be the Holy Scriptures for the lefty blog set and will likely sell a bunch, though nobody will ever trust McClellan again.