Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says he is hesitant about working as a pundit. | John Shinkle/POLITICO McClellan's next step: Changing D.C.

There may not be second acts in America, but White House-press-secretary-turned-best-selling-memoirist Scott McClellan is looking for a third.

Since the release of “What Happened” in early June, McClellan has been in the whirlwind of a nationwide book tour. Now that his publicity commitments have tapered off, and as he awaits some of that sweet royalty coin — he got a $75,000 advance for a book that has sold more than 175,000 copies — McClellan says the time has come for him to figure out what’s next.


“I’d like to — whether it is a full-time commitment or something — continue working on some of the ways I talk about in the book to change the way Washington works, or so forth, improving governance in Washington,” he said last week over lunch in Arlington, Va.

McClellan considers himself liberated, freed from the bonds of always speaking for somebody else. But this freedom, 2½ years in the making, is not one McClellan has seized zealously. He seems in no hurry to put any new cards on the table.

With the book, he’s got the financial wherewithal to bide his time. With his old job behind him, he’s got the space to remain — like Colin Powell — undecided in the presidential race.

“I’m in some respects where he is,” said McClellan, “or he’s where I am, thinking this through.”

The Bush White House platitudes McClellan once trafficked in have been replaced by the bipartisan axioms that dot his book. Where McClellan once muttered things like “stay the course,” these days he’s all atwitter about the “permanent campaign,” the “Washington game” and the “culture of deception.”

They’re time-worn clichés, to be sure, but McClellan utters them with a sense of sheer revelation.

Instead of ratcheting up his criticism, or even crystallizing his own positions on policy or politics, he has spent a great deal of effort in these intervening months diffusing it, being amorphous at times to the point of self-contradiction.

“It can be difficult, even painful, to look back on our own mistakes,” McClellan writes in the last paragraph of “What Happened.” “It’s tempting to focus on the obvious triumphs or ignore history altogether in our constant quest for a better tomorrow. But I’m convinced there’s much to be gained from thoughtful, candid and probing self-examination ... and that requires an honest look at what happened.”

And yet, when asked what advice he would give to a President Barack Obama or Democratic Congress on the matter of handling former Bush officials, McClellan speaks now of the perils of probing the past.

“If Obama were to win,” he said last week, “that would be an issue his administration would have to face early ... because he’s pledging to be a uniter, not a divider — without saying those exact words we campaigned on in 2000. He’s pledging to change the way Washington works, and if Congress were to pursue that, it would be very divisive.”

He continued: “That could be very problematic for his presidency right off the start.”

McClellan found himself tap-dancing recently after making some unintended news on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” Chris Matthews pressed McClellan about a nexus between the Bush administration and Fox News, at which point it seemed that McClellan confirmed the host’s suspicion that Bill O’Reilly was a partaker of White House talking points. An infuriated O’Reilly pushed back on the air.

“There are some of the media wars between the networks and I don’t want to insert myself into that,” McClellan said, “and I told O’Reilly that when I went on to his radio program.”

O’Reilly, in turn, railed against McClellan for being a puppet of NBC. McClellan apologized and later clarified on O’Reilly’s radio program that he hadn’t meant to implicate him.

O’Reilly is “leaving a false impression,” McClellan said. “But I understand he can’t acknowledge a mistake, because there are plenty of critics out there who could jump all over it.”

As for a future career in punditry — a natural choice for someone who has now seen both sides — McClellan said he spoke recently to an agent who was advocating it. He’s hesitant.

At the moment, he sits on the International Advisory Council of APCO Worldwide, the international communications consultancy. He resigned his job as a senior vice president at HHB Inc., a technology and consulting firm, before his book was published. He mentioned an interest in an academic position, and he wouldn’t even rule out the possibility of being a political or campaign spokesman in the distant future.

“If I did,” he said, “there would have to be some very clear understandings and expectations at the beginning.”

Having floated, back in May, the idea that he could vote for Obama, McClellan says he’s now no closer to deciding how he’ll vote in November.

“There is so much one person can do, and you don’t even know if that person is fully committed to doing what he says he’s going to do,” McClellan said.

Still, he takes a notably harsher tone toward John McCain.

“I don’t like the direction his campaign is going right now,” McClellan said. “I think it’s become a mistake to accentuate the negative strategy. It’s this win-at-all-costs mentality, and in some ways it comes across as a little desperate to me.”

McClellan said he still hasn’t spoken with President Bush or any senior administration officials — current or former — since his book was released. He said he hopes he’s able to renew some of those friendships after the election.

He also said he would look forward to reading Powell’s insider’s account of the administration.

“I don’t know if he’ll do it,” McClellan said. “But ... I think you’ll get the most candid look at things from him, and that’s not to denigrate any other books that might be written. ... I think Powell is the kind of guy [who] wouldn’t do it unless he spoke candidly and honestly about what occurred without any political manipulation that might be seen in others.”

The idea of writing another book is not off the table, and friends have joked that McClellan should write a sequel, something to the effect of “What Happened Since ‘What Happened.’”