the buck stops there

Oh, my. Former press secretary Scott McClellan has written a book which contains, among other things, an apparent admission of misleading.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recount the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Monday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Whenever I hear about a he-said/she-said situation (and all its variables), especially in regards to whether or not a specific event occurred, I want to ask: who stands to benefit more from giving false statements?

I imagine my Democratic friends will rush to vilify Wilson/Plame and demonize Bush & Co., and my Republican friends will attack McClellan.