Scott McClellan: “I do think that Senator Kerry losing his cool should not be an excuse for him to lash out at the president with false…”

I think he believes that. He's convinced himself to believe that, but I don't think it's true.

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.

We should have embraced a high level of openness and forthrightness, in addition to that, and then the expectations wouldn't have gotten so out of whack, and we wouldn't have been in the problem we were -- we came to later when the…

It's too much about party and too little about the country. And we need to put the country first and put the party much lower.