The presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course, and the administration was guilty of a, in his words, excessive embrace of the permanent campaign approach to governance.
Scott McClellan criticizes the Bush administration's governance style.
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This is a White House that doesn't like to look back. The president doesn't like to spend time reflecting.
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 and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war.
But the federal government should have taken more responsibility, because, to the American people, I think, the federal government is the failsafe backstop to all that.