To show there are no hard feelings

Dubya and his Cabinet take Scotty McLellan out for a friendly beer and a little night music.

Of course, as Commander Guy's Press Secretary, Scotty Dog's "real" job was never to inform, discuss or answer a damned thing.

Like Alberto Gonzalez, his job was simply to geek for the cameras, in the very old-time sense of the word:

"The origin of the term dates back to the late 1800s. A geek was a carnival performer who bit off the head of a chicken or was part of a freak show."

Scotty Dog's job to stand in the spotlight and rub shit in his hair.

Like Gonzalez, his job was to be a daily, human manifestation of Dubya's utter contempt for every aspect of the democracy which he had sworn to uphold. A daily "fuck you " from the Bicycle Chief to the very idea that his imperial presidency should ever have to answer a single fucking question or be held to account for a single fucking thing.

And in my wiliest imaginings I could not dream up a more grotesquely perfect, final coda to a life lived in the ethics-free, garbage-in-garbage-out dumpster of the Dubya Plantation than Scotty Dog angling for a big payday based on his reportage of his own utter, slavish, Constitution-shredding debasement to the monsters he so loyally served.

This column -- "A World Made More Opaque: Why Scott McClellan Had His Job" -- by Jay Rosen surgically disassembles the life and times of Scotty the Dissembler, and shows why what McClellan did was so much worse than merely lying.

A World Made More Opaque: Why Scott McClellan Had His Job

Scott McClellan deserves to be remembered, not as the greatest but as one of the most effective stooge figures in the Bush Administration. (The greatest: Alberto Gonzalez.) This week's news from his publisher--that the stooge says he had unknowingly passed along false information provided to him by Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Andrew Card, "and the president himself"--would seem to suggest that McClellan may be waking up a bit to what his actual role was during the three years he served as White House press secretary.

But I wouldn't count on this awareness reaching very far. In fact, by seizing on a case where an outright falsehood was passed along to the press, we may overlook the meaning of McClellan's tenure as the jerk at the podium, which is what I called him in my April, 2006 retrospective. You can read that post for the full interpretation; here's the gist of what I want you to appreciate about McClellan, because it's worse than lying.

Although he stood at the podium and managed the briefings, McClellan was not there to brief the press. He was there to frustrate, and belittle it, and provoke journalists into discrediting themselves on television. Choosing him to be the president's spokesman was a brazen act because it contradicted at least 40 years of received wisdom on how to manage White House communications
...

And because Scotty was a member in such good standing of the Republican "They hired me because there are some things even a brain-rotted, crack-addled, alley scat whore won't do" rogues gallery, I'm sure the rest of them still happily playing Cesspit Marco Polo at the White House will find time in their busy schedules to take their former BFF out for at least one night on the town to celebrate his good fortune.

And the beer they'll drink?