Spinning the Spinmeister

May 29, 2008— -- Even the spin doctors sometimes get spun.

It's not just the American people who were deceived by the Bush administration, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan asserts in his new tell-all memoir -- he says he was deceived, too.

As the mouthpiece of the administration, presenting the president's policies to the public, the White House press secretary serves at the pleasure of the president. But he is also a public servant, and as such, has a responsibility to be as honest as possible about what is really going on behind the closed doors of the Oval Office.

"As press secretary," he writes in his new memoir "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," "I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided."

McClellan accuses President Bush and administration officials of being "evasive" and "shading the truth" about the war in Iraq, Bush's rumored cocaine use and a White House leak that outed CIA agent Valerie Plame.

He chastises the president for his "decision to turn away from candor and honesty when these qualities were most needed."

Getting spun by White House officials, and parsing out what is true enough to share with the public is all part of the job, former President Clinton's press secretary Dee Dee Meyers said.

"It is incumbent on you, as press secretary, to talk to a lot of people and discern the truth yourself," she said. "Not everyone you work with will always tell you the truth. Sometimes they are spinning you, sometimes they have a position that is unresolved, and sometimes they're just covering their own backside."

Under the pressure of the 24-hour news cycle and regular briefs, there is "never time to be absolutely sure of all the facts. You would never be able to brief reporters if you had to be reassured of every detail," Meyers said.