Et Tu, Scott?

We settle for a little TV time in return for personal abasement. That's no very happy exchange. A backstabber who aims no higher than did Scott McClellan lacks, well, imagination. He reminds us, at all events, of the durability of temptation and the need for moral fences to keep it out.

Loyalty isn't the chief of virtues -- disgraced as it's been by, say, the inhabitants of the Fuehrerbunker in Berlin, April 1945. Still, loyalty has its place, as facilitating trust and blocking fulfillment of the gospel of Every Man for Himself. To accept public honor and emolument is to acquire an obligation -- to behave one's self with honor.

Honor, in Scott McClellan's case, could have been served -- maybe it was -- by resignation the moment he lost trust. Honor, in Scott McClellan's case, conspicuously wasn't served by writing a book entrenching the same weary arguments his former boss's critics have worn into the public consciousness: We shouldn't have gone in there! We messed up! Bush lied, men died! Just what we need to hear again.

This, too, shall pass, as will eventually -- let us hope -- memory of backstabbing Scott McClellan. But Indiana Jones -- where's that guy now that we really need him?!