March 25, 2004
Richard Clarke has Bushites running scared
They have no answer to his charges, so all they can do is call him names and attempt to impugn his character while straining to cast any doubt that they can on his credibility through surrogates like Fox News:
Shortly before the hearing, the White House violated its long-standing rules by authorizing Fox News to air remarks favorable to Bush that Clarke had made anonymously at an administration briefing in 2002. The White House press secretary read passages from the 2002 remarks at his televised briefing, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who has declined to give public testimony to the commission, called reporters into her office to highlight the discrepancy. "There are two very different stories here," she said. "These stories can't be reconciled."Back at the hearing, former Illinois governor James R. Thompson, a Republican member of the commission, took up the cause, waving the Fox News transcript with one hand and Clarke's critical book in the other. "Which is true?" Thompson demanded, folding his arms and glowering down at the witness.
Clarke, appearing unfazed by the apparent contradiction between his current criticism and previous praise, spoke to Thompson as if addressing a slow student.
"I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done, and to minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done," he explained. "I've done it for several presidents."
Funny: Condoleezza has time to attack Clarke, but no time to testify under oath to this same commission.
Condaleeza Rice will not testify but has no reluctance to appear on every TV show that would have her and most would. Imus this morning criticized Fox’s Sean Hannity for doing a poor job of questioning. I didn’t see the attacks she launched on Clarke as “scurrilous”. I did see how well Clarke stood up on the barrage of attacks he is being subjected to. The National Security Advisor Ms Rice led the demolition derby aimed at Clarke
MoveOn has a new ad planned to get Richard Clarke’s message out to the people:
“Frankly, I find it outrageous that a president is running for re-election on the grounds that he'd done such great things on terrorism. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11"
This is a direct quote from Clarke’s 60 Minutes interview.
And from Daily Kos:
Despite the assists of hacks like Lehman and the slimeballs at Fox News, this whistleblower will be hard to marginalize and ignore. The political heart of the Bush presidency is counter-terrorism, and their former counter-terrorism expert may have just ripped out their heart.Richard Clarke is a hawk, appears to have been a Republican, and most balanced summaries of his career show him to have been a bit of a loose cannon too smitten by covert actions and insufficiently respectful of civil liberties. But he's the type of knowledgeable, dogged, and passionate analyst on whom every successful administration must rely for honest and non-ideological appraisals and advice. However, this administration doesn't value analysts, it values acolytes. Thus, it's not surprising this outraged insider has so effectively exposed the rank incompetence and rotten dishonesty at the center of the Bush administration. Furthermore, this administration doesn't respect people who aren't cynical idolaters of power like themselves; it's to be expected that they wouldn't heed the advice of someone whose character and motivations are so different from their own. The leaders of the Bush administration wouldn't listen to Richard Clarke because, as he proved today, he is fundamentally what they will never be. Richard Clarke is a mensch, and Richard Clarke is a patriot.
Posted by Norwood at March 25, 2004 08:57 AM
