McClellan created a political firestorm with his political memoir What Happened. Scott McClellan harshly criticized the Bush Administration and the culture of the "permanent campaign". Scott McClellan writes, "I still like and admire George W. Bush. I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people." But McClellan believes that Bush was misled and deceived by much of his staff, and that the President’s remarkable ability at self-deception enabled him to believe the half-truths that formed the basis of his policies.
McClellan was most angered by the Valerie Plame Affair, where he felt he was made to lie to the American public about the leaking of classified information. Scott McClellan wrote What Happened because he felt had to tell his version of events. He also gives harsh criticism of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq.
McClellan is blunt in his criticism of Bush. He writes that Bush was a "leader unable to acknowledge that he got it wrong, and unwilling to grow in office by learning from his mistake -- too stubborn to change and grow." Still, Scott McClellan lays some of the blame for not seeing the truth on himself. For their part, the Bush Administration distanced itself from Scott McClellan, saying "This is not the Scott we knew." They also dispute the claim McClellan makes that Bush and his staff purposely misled the public into the Iraq War.