Are you ready to elect Scott McClellan president of the United States?

As I watched McClellan with Keith Olbermann Thursday night, and flipped through What Happened, McClellan’s much-talked-about book, it became clear: That’s the question Americans are being asked this election.

Think about it: McClellan was unconvincing under fire when he was at that White House podium — not unlike Barack Obama in debate (remember those? It’s been a while). McClellan is prone to gaffes — again, like the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. McClellan doesn’t say a heck of a lot, so he makes it easy to use him — whether as a symbol of Bush-administration incompetence, as the media took him then, or as a freed prisoner, as Keith Olbermann, who says he is “impressed” by the book, uses him now.

And so Keith Olbermann projected, Thursday night, onto What Happened. He invited McClellan on and wrote the narrative, led the Bush-and-Cheney-bashing dance, to which McClellan — whose book doesn’t say all that much, just enough to be easily used by those who actually have an ideological agenda — happily followed. Perhaps nowhere was this clearer than when Olbermann asserted that the administration misled Americans about the September 11 attacks, to which McClellan had absolutely nothing to add.

It’s like McClellan handed a press conference over to David Gregory. (Come to think of it, he did that too!)

Scott McClellan does a lot of empty whining about “the Washington game” in his book, and on his media tour thus far. Ironically, Scott McClellan is what’s wrong with Washington: people in power who don’t believe in anything. People who’ve been elected or nominated or appointed who won’t fight for anything. Officials who are content being in power, period. This is why Scott McClellan didn’t do anything if he thought “Bush lied, people died” while McClellan was serving in the White House.

McClellan is wrong to attack partisanship: We should bring on the ideology. Bring on the partisanship. Bring on actual principled fights. (Have a fight about the farm bill! Have a fight about cap-and-trade next week! Who needs three presidential candidates who all support an expensive, harmful non-solution?)

If a with-it Scott McClellan had voiced concerns – again, if he actually had them — about the war effort, maybe he could have made a contribution. Isn’t that why one goes to Washington? It is, if you’re there for the right reasons.

I don’t actually believe that Barack Obama believes nothing. I think what we hear from Mrs. Obama and Jeremiah Wright offer some indication of what’s in his heart. But Barack Obama is counting on a nation of aw-shucks Scott McClellans feeling good about hope and change voting for him in the name of change in Washington — which is what Scott McClellan claims is his reason for having been a Bush man. And if Obama’s elected, we’ll look every bit the fool Scott McClellan always has: a man who now realizes he’s too easily led, and prone to get lost whenever he’s around anyone who actually has any principles.

McClellan argues for “transpartisanship” in his book, insisting that the president’s inner circle include “a healthy number of members from the other party and possibly an independent leader or two. Such transpartisanship would be particularly important in today’s hyperpartisan, ideologically driven Washington environment.” He continues: “Why not a secretary of state, defense, or treasury from the opposition party? It’s easy to think of distinguished, capable, centrist figures from both the Democratic and Republican parties who are admirably suited to fill these roles. What a powerful gesture of national unity this would be coming from our next president!”

Why can’t John McCain just run with Barack Obama? Why not just compromise now, on big issues of disagreement, and not bother having a real policy debate?

Nonsense. At a time of war, at a time when courts and executives are making laws that they were never intended to make unilaterally, we should not be singing Kumbaya. It’s a time to stand, fight, and deliver. It’s a time to give people clear choices. Where we agree, fantastic. But let’s not agree for the sake of agreeing. And let’s not start from a position of compromise.

Forgive me for being predictable, and borrowing from Ronald Reagan, but he remains a treasure trove: Trust, but verify. Extend a hand across the aisle, but don’t hand over your spine as an olive branch.

– Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.