The big news story in Washington this week has been the release of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's book, in which he blasts his former employer, the Bush Administration, for systematically misleading the public through the years.

It's certainly a fascinating development - a former press secretary has never penned a book so critical of the president for whom he worked, and it's never been published while that president was still in office.

It's those two facts that have created the media frenzy over the book, because the book's content itself reveals nothing terribly new.

By now we've all come to learn about the shady tactics that went into selling the war in Iraq. We all know Scooter Libby and Karl Rove were involved in leaking Valerie Plame's CIA connections to the media. We know the administration quickly dropped any effort to create a new culture to “unite” Washington, something Bush had actually done well in Texas.

But those truths took considerable time to emerge, and that should be a big part of the McClellan book coverage. It's essentially a validation of how poorly Washington is covered by the media these days.

Press secretaries are paid to manipulate and mislead, if not outright lie. That aspect of the book is not a bombshell revelation to the Washington press corps.

What this book should be doing to the Washington media is causing embarrassment. It should be another reminder of how poorly national politics is covered because it's no longer analyzed and checked for the policies that are created. Now, it's always about the points that are scored after a particular statement or decision.

That's precisely what's happening with the coverage of the book. You've heard plenty on the debate over McClellan's motivation - money or a desire to tell the truth. You've heard the debate over whether a press secretary should ever write a book about a sitting president. You've heard the debate over why McClellan stayed on the job so long if he was disenchanted.

But I've heard little discussion about what this book says about the media's willingness to simply accept what press secretaries dish out and then pass it along to viewers, listeners and readers as if it were the absolute truth.

My hope is that McClellan's book will serve as a wake-up call for the Washington media. My fear is that the current mode of operation is so thoroughly entrenched that it won't make a bit of difference.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Saturdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net