Ask all of us: What happened?

The most remarkable thing about Scott McClellan's book tour to Seattle — really the only remarkable thing — is that 800 people showed up to see it.

McClellan is the former flack who turned on his boss, President Bush. His new book "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," details how Bush heads a secretive, polarizing operation that plays loose with the truth.

OK. But didn't we know that already?

It also says the Iraq war was unnecessary and sold to the public with propaganda.

Right. Didn't we know that one, too?

It also says Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby hedged about their roles in exposing a CIA agent. It says Dick Cheney couldn't care less what the public thinks. It says the media after 9/11 was a pack of lap dogs.

Only didn't we ... ? Yes. Everything in this book — and all that McClellan told the Town Hall crowd Monday night — is part of a familiar, sorry tale.

And yet. There were all those people, thirsting for it.

Why did they come?

"I think it's because people feel there still needs to be an accounting, some justice for all this," said one of the 800, Gifford Jones, 70, of Seattle. "Hearing the story, from an eyewitness — it isn't an impeachment hearing, but it's the next best thing. It's like a metaphoric impeachment."

Bellevue's Linda Boyd, who wants a real impeachment, said that regardless of whether that ever happens, "we have a river to cross in this nation."

"How we went to war, how we ended up torturing people, the whole mess — the full airing of that can't be left behind just because we've heard parts of it before," Boyd said.

"People are hungry for some process of truth and reconciliation. It's not about dwelling in the past. Or playing gotcha. It's about this country's future."

So says McClellan, too. His book is a reckoning of how politics goes wrong, he says. A cautionary tale.

Unfortunately, he still speaks like a press secretary. At times his personal journey sounds like more talking points. I didn't get the sense he understands the forces that consumed him. Let alone what we could do to curb them going ahead.

Afterward, backstage, I asked him why he never said a peep about any of this while working for Bush, even though he knew back then he was disillusioned. I don't mean publicly. He never said a word inside the White House that he thought it was losing its way. Why?

He's not entirely sure, he says. I guess the fog machine got lost in the fog, too.

"When you're on the inside, you're caught up in it. You're on a team, it's a competitive atmosphere, so you give the team the benefit of the doubt. It was a long, hard process for me, almost a withdrawal, to get to where I am today. To see it more clearly.

"I'd like to think I would do it differently now. If I could go back and have the chance."

That sounds a lot like someone I know. Namely, America.

This book is titled "What Happened." Doesn't seem like we're ready to be so definitive. More fitting would be: "What Happened?"

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.