So what does richard Clark really think?

[dude1394]

WASHINGTON - The White House, seeking to cool criticism from a former top anti-terror adviser, said Tuesday that Richard Clarke's resignation letter praised President Bush (news - web sites)'s "courage, determination, calm and leadership" on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months," said the Jan. 20, 2003, letter from Clarke to Bush. "I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th."

[madape]

IMUS RIPS 'LYING' STAHL

By JOHN MAINELLI
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


March 24, 2004 -- DON Imus called CBS's Lesley Stahl a "gutless, lying weasel" yesterday for abruptly canceling an interview during which Imus planned to hammer her about conflict-of-interest allegations.
"I realize it's a little late in your life, honey, to start gettin' honest, but just say 'I don't want to appear on the program . . . because I heard what he said earlier this morning,' " Imus railed.

Imus had promised listeners he'd ask Stahl why she and "60 Minutes" didn't disclose that the new book by Sunday night's controversial guest - former terrorism official Richard Clarke - was released by Simon & Schuster.

Both the publisher and CBS - as well as Imus's station, WFAN - are owned by media giant Viacom.

"60 Minutes" executive producer Don Hewitt said the program should have disclosed the corporate connection but that leaving it out was merely an "oversight."

Imus yesterday accused Stahl of being "one of the more dishonest members of the media" for allegedly going too easy on Clarke, who's been characterized as a disgruntled former employee by Bush administration officials.

"She did everything but slip her tongue in his ear," said sidekick Bernard McGuirk.

"No wonder Fox [News Channel] is killing people - because people hate these people," said Imus.

A CBS News spokesperson told The Post that Stahl had to cancel Imus to shoot extra footage at Grand Central Terminal for upcoming segments of her primetime magazine "48 Hours Investigates."

[Mavdog]

In that Imus' program is done from WFAN, which is a part of Infinity Broadcasting, owned by Viacom, also the owner of CBS as well as the publisher of Clarkes' book, doesn't Imus need to disclose the connection as his remarks will certainly generate publicity for the book?

Seems he is doing just what he is criticizing Stahl for doing....how hypocritical.

Here again the discussion is NOT about the facts Clarke has laid out and the criticism of the Bush WH contained in the book, but rather the trivial failure of CBS to disclose its connection.

BTW if Stahl indeed wanted to "slip her tounge in his [Clarke] ear" why did she take the time to have Hadley on, who clearly was there to dispute what Clarke was saying? hmmm....seems to be a big contradiction to me.

[Drbio]

Clark is looking for the retiring dollar. Don't you agree that a book like this would sell tons of copy?


Of course it will.....

[Mavdog]

Clearly he's looking for the payday this marketing extravaganza is creating. No question that this is being perfectly timed with the comm. hearings. His "people" are doing a tremendous job.

If he is being honest in what he's saying, that's OK. If he has twisted it to a reflect a certain angle, it's not.

[Mavdog]

dang dbl post

[dude1394]

It's shocking that a guy who spent 8 years in the clintoon administration while the first world trade bomber happens, khobar towers, somalia and the cole occurs has the chutzpah to say that bush didn't take terrorism seriously after 8 months in office. This is also after one of the shortestd transitional periods in US history as well as not having may of his security and defense folks confirmed until july of that year.

This is the same guy that the bush administration kept on for continuity. This is also one of the first times in histoy that a national security member has written such an attack book. Unfortunately for the country the next administration will be forced to fire the preceding guy to protect themselves.

This man is not doing our country good.

[MavKikiNYC]

Very interesting perspective on Clarke from Commision Member John Lehman on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Excerpts below. Link here.



JOHN LEHMAN: Well, I think the disappointment that was evident in hearing today certainly from me and from some others about Dick Clarke's testimony was he was very eloquent in our interviews and the long time that we spent with him about the lack of effective intelligence provided in a timely basis to the decision-makers in both administrations. And I think that to the effect there was not a sense of urgency in the Bush administration, it's because other than Dick Clarke who was for at least ten years telling people that it was an urgent problem, the official sources of intelligence coming to the president did not break this out from the other urgent problems in a sufficient form. And that's what we're really trying, all of us, to get at and to fix because this commission ultimately is not a blame game. We're going to let the facts speak for themselves -- but we owe the country a set of changes and reforms to fix those things that have really seriously gone wrong.

... ... ...

MARGARET WARNER: But, Mr. Lehman, Dick Clarke's big criticism is and his big piece of evidence that they didn't take it urgently enough was that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, essentially dismissed his request that the principals-- the cabinet officers-- meet, that they, as he says shake their agencies for every bit of information, that if that had happened during the summer, during this spike threat in intelligence chatter that they might have learned what the FBI actually knew down in the bowels of the FBI that two of the 9/11 hijackers known al-Qaida operatives were in this country -- do you find that persuasive?

JOHN LEHMAN: No, I don't because, in fact, while it is true in the Clinton administration that Dick Clarke met with the president regularly and had regular access to him and George Tenet did not, in the Bush administration it was the other way around. George Tenet met every day to brief the president and give him his frank assessment of the entire-- and don't forget-- he's the DCI, speaks for the whole community and Dick Clarke did not. So I think there's a certain-- I hate to say this because in no way it takes away from the professionalism and the contributions Dick's made-- but I think there's a certain amount of dog in the manger there that he lost his access to George Tenet and so we have to calibrate that.

... ... ...

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Lehman, you today-- and we ran some of this in our excerpts-- questioned Clarke's very credibility. You told him he had to resolve some things. Are you saying you find his criticism today of the Bush administration's conduct suspect?

JOHN LEHMAN: I did not and would not suggest that he was bending the facts or changing the facts as he testified under oath both in the private sessions and public. What I was saying is that he let the blame go evenly and directly where it should go in the bureaucratic screw-ups and the bad calls that were made in both administrations in his private testimony with us. Yet in his public testimony, he turned it into a fairly... well not his public testimony but his book and the promotion thereof -- of a fairly rounding attack on only one administration. That was the administration that didn't have eight years of responsibility but seven-and-a-half months. And I think, frankly, because it turns out we both have the same editor at Simon & Schuster that there's a certain amount of bookselling going on here and fair and judicious does not sell a lot of books.

[dude1394]

I just saw bret hume's news show and bill kristol was really pretty scathing about this guy's credibility and especially the damage he's done by breaking the precedent of an intelligence person criticizing a prior administration and providing sensitive intelligence data and personal conversations. It will poison the next administration.

But it's pretty indicative of what has happened since the clintoons sullied the office. Washington has never been as partisan and the government folks more self-absorbed. Of course some of it has to do with the unwillingness of the mainstream media to do their job and keep politicians honest about their statements. Almost anything a liberal throws out there either isn't analyzed critically or the same amount of hysteria isn't associated with it.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: dude1394
But it's pretty indicative of what has happened since the clintoons sullied the office. Washington has never been as partisan and the government folks more self-absorbed. Of course some of it has to do with the unwillingness of the mainstream media to do their job and keep politicians honest about their statements. Almost anything a liberal throws out there either isn't analyzed critically or the same amount of hysteria isn't associated with it.

Pure BS.
Clinton wasn't the first president to have controversy, and nobody "sullied" the office more than dick nixon.

the "mainstream media" will expose their mom if it makes a name for themselves.

[FishForLunch]

Clarke told reporters different story in 2002 background briefing
Said Bush wanted to pursue policy to kill bin Laden
From John King and Dana Bash
CNN Washington Bureau



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In August 2002, then-White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke told reporters that the Bush administration -- from day one -- told him to "vigorously pursue" the Clinton administration policy that allowed the United States to kill Osama bin Laden if the opportunity arose.

In addition, he said that in the spring of 2001 Bush committed to a "five-fold" increase in CIA resources dedicated to going after the al Qaeda leader.

"What we ended up with was a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda," Clarke told reporters in August 2002. "So the president recognizes very early on that you don't want to roll back al Qaeda over this long period of time, you want to eliminate al Qaeda on a much more accelerated timetable."

In a new book, Clarke accuses the Bush administration of neglecting the threat from bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network before the al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said the difference between the 2002 remarks and those in his recent book "goes directly to Mr. Clarke's credibility."

"Dick Clarke, in his own words, provides a point-by-point rebuttal of what he now asserts," McClellan said. "This shatters the cornerstone of Mr. Clarke's assertions."

At the time of the briefing, ground rules allowed reporters to identify Clarke only as "a senior administration official." The White House waived that restriction after Fox News pointed out Clarke's remarks, McClellan said Wednesday.

Two administration officials called CNN to say Clarke's remarks from the 2002 briefing could be used and attributed to him by name.

"Mr. Clarke made assertions that we have said are flat-out wrong, and it's important for the American people to have the facts," McClellan said. "Mr. Clarke certainly decided on his own to go ahead and reveal conversations that were considered private previously."

In testimony Tuesday before the independent commission investigating the September 11 attacks, Clarke said he was asked to present information to reporters at that briefing "in a way that minimized criticism of the administration," but was not told to make "an untrue case."

"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 said. "As a special assistant to the president, one is frequently asked to that kind of thing. I've done it for several presidents."

In the 2002 briefing, Clarke said, "President Bush told us in March (2001) to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem." That, he said, changed U.S. national security policy "from one of rollback to one of elimination."

At another point in the briefing, Clarke was directly asked if he believed the new Bush team had "animus" toward Clinton administration holdovers and Clinton administration policies.

Clarke responded: "If there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with the terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against the, uh, previous team to me."

Clarke also told reporters at the time that there were some recommendations passed along from the Clinton to Bush administrations as to how to pursue al Qaeda, "but there was no plan" as in a detailed plan of action.

Given that, Clarke said the Bush administration decided to leave the existing policy in place, "including all of the lethal covert action findings" allowing attempts to kill bin Laden, while initiating a new review designed to settle unresolved issues from the Clinton years and also to develop a new strategy for confronting al Qaeda.

Clarke in his book and in interviews promoting it has suggested there was little urgency in the early days of the Bush administration about al Qaeda. But in the August 2002 briefing he credits the Bush administration with trying to resolve the policy disputes that were not settled in the Clinton days, and credited the Bush team with moving in the spring of 2001 to open a dialogue with Pakistan designed to get Islamabad "to break away from the Taliban."