Lightning must have struck their leaders, because MoveOn.org has actually come up with a great idea:

The liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org today launched a petition drive calling on former White House official Scott McClellan to donate the proceeds of his book to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

“McClellan shouldn’t profit off the role he played in our nation’s largest foreign policy blunder,” the release reads.

“After spending years defending the Bush administration and perpetuating the lies that led our country into war, Scott McClellan is poised to make bank — his tell-all book is a bestseller and he may make hundreds of thousands or millions,” MoveOn says. “Meanwhile, our troops are still dying in Iraq.”

This goes to the heart of what I was saying yesterday: All the evidence suggests that financial considerations drove the timing and tone of McClellan’s book. In other words, it looks like McClellan needed to make a few bucks; for his part, he hasn’t denied it when given the chance.

That’s why it would really lend a lot of credibility to his argument and to his supposed attack of conscience if McClellan did take this suggestion and donate the proceeds from the book to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the chances that McClellan will donate his big bucks to that cause—or to any cause other than Scott McClellan, for that matter—exist only in theory.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on the guy. After all, gas is nearing $4 a gallon. Extra cash is more important than integrity these days, anyway ... right, Scott?

There’s at least one Washington bigwig who won’t be buying Scott McClellan’s new book.

Bob Dole, former Senate Majority Leader and Republican candidate for president in 1996, reportedly sent McClellan the following e-mail this week:

Scott,

There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.

In my nearly 36 years of public service I’ve known of a few like you. No doubt you will “clean up” as the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm. When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, “Biting The Hand That Fed Me.” Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years.

I have no intention of reading your “exposé” because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively. You’re a hot ticket now but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?

BOB DOLE

Let’s see ... Dole says McClellan is a weasly, gutless, greedy, opportunististic “miserable creature,” a “total ingrate” devoid of integrity, courage and credibility.

Wow. YOW-za. Or, as they say, “Wha-POW!”

In the wake of today’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, DNC officials would be well served to reassess its media and open meetings policy.

Hold on, hold on: I’m not suggesting by any means that DNC officials should close any meeting to the public (although the RBC members did meet behind closed doors for about two hours between sessions today, and presumably, that’s where the deals were worked out).

I am just suggesting that the DNC could better manage its availability issues.

If I was in charge of PR for the party, I would suggest that in the future, if party officials are ever faced with such a contentious meeting (say, theoretically, when the Credentials Committee gets together at the national convention in August), they: