Dems excited, GOP wary of McClellan’s testimony

House Democrats are eagerly preparing for Friday’s testimony by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, but Republicans seem unsure of how to handle the president’s unlikely critic.

Both Democrats and Republicans said they fully expect the hearing to extend far beyond the leak of a CIA agent’s name and delve fully into McClellan’s charges that the Bush administration deceived the American public about its reasons for going to war in Iraq.

{mosads}For Democrats, this line of inquiry will be entirely appropriate.

“The fundamental question that many Americans are asking is, Was there intentional deception in the run-up to the war?” Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said. “The Judiciary Committee already has a referral on articles of impeachment that have, at their foundation, that the president and the vice president intentionally deceived the American people.”

Senior Judiciary Committee Democrat Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) said Thursday that he had already directed his staff to dig into McClellan’s book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, and prepare questions for the former press secretary, who readily accepted an invitation from Judiciary panel Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) to testify before the full committee.

“I think people are just very curious,” said Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), another committee member. He said he has been reading McClellan’s book in preparation for Friday’s hearing.

“At least I’m going into it with a ‘lessons learned’ perspective to see how we can improve upon the process,” he said.

In contrast, the House Republican game plan for McClellan was at best a work in progress.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the committee, bashed Democrats for what he said was a “waste of time,” but admitted that his conference has not yet developed a cohesive strategy for how to deal with the public re-hashing of McClellan’s claims.

Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) both said this week through spokesmen that they were not yet prepared to talk about the questions they will have for McClellan.

“We’ll see on Friday,” Goodlatte said.

While there has been some discussion of a boycott of the hearing by Republicans, Smith said his members will attend, and then wait and see what McClellan and the Democrats have in store for them.

“We’ll see what responses he gives,” Smith said, “and which Scott McClellan shows up.”

Smith, for one, said he doesn’t believe McClellan will be a credible witness and stated he will focus his questions on whether the former press secretary was actually in a position to verify his more controversial claims, as well as question his motivation for publishing such an attention-grabbing book.

“We’ll show up,” Smith said. “If they’re going to have a hearing on this, we’ll try and look into Mr. McClellan’s motives and credibility.”

The strategy carries its own problems for House Republicans, who need to walk a fine line between being seen as the attack dogs for an unpopular president and, on the flip side, letting McClellan off the hook and giving Democrats an easy day in the spotlight.

“I’m not here to be a shill for the administration,” said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.). “I don’t even know for sure what questions I’ll ask … But I do want to see if he knows anything factual that would implicate anybody from having knowingly misled anyone.”

McClellan’s book contains a number of scathing charges, such as the charge that the Bush administration was selective with certain facts in pursuing the Iraq war. McClellan wrote the war was “not necessary” and that he was pushed by administration officials who “made a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”

He also charges he was misled over the role Bush’s former political adviser Karl Rove and other top White House officials played in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have been frustrated with their inability to get information from the Bush White House on a host of issues, including the Plame leak. They appear to view McClellan’s confessional as a long-awaited opening.

“The administration has always called for different kinds of privileges to avoid their officials testifying, but because Mr. McClellan has put all this information in a book, these privileges, I do not believe, would be available to the administration,” said Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) when he first called for McClellan’s testimony.