CNN Psychoanalyzes Rush on McClellan

RUSH: Now, here’s the CNN piece. Carol Costello. It’s a report on McClellan’s book, and there’s a psychoanalysis of me here.

COSTELLO: Rush Limbaugh called him another Republican turncoat.

RUSH ARCHIVE: They’ll throw anybody under the bus even their own grandmothers to have a seat of power with the libs; get their approval. It’s not just Scott McClellan. He’s the worst example of it lately.

COSTELLO: Unflattering kiss-and-tells about the Bush administration are a dime a dozen. From a psychological standpoint, that’s not surprising. Analysts say the Bush administration demanded loyalty and suppressed dissent — a perfect repentance for rebellion.

PSYCHIATRIST GAIL SALTZ: When you see someone commit what appears to be an act of revenge and do it in a potentially very self-destructive way, you have to wonder about the guilt that they feel, all right? Because they’re asking for punishment, in a sense.

COSTELLO: And Scott McClellan is certainly feeling a backlash. But ethicists look at it another way.

BUINESS WEEK’S BRUCE WEINSTEIN: There is no statute of limitations on telling the truth, and he may be, uh, alienating people but he may very well feel that — uh, and perhaps justifiably so — that it’s more important to be truthful and to let the American people know what was actually happening.

RUSH: Do you know what this book is: every anti-Bush speech by Arianna Huffington and every anti-Bush monologue by Chris Matthews. Put ’em in a book and you’ve got what Scott McClellan wrote.