Former Counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke was on 'Meet the Press' this morning for the full hour. The bulk of his testimony was critical of the Bush administration for doing too little to combat terrorism before 9/11 and for invading Iraq which he charged "greatly undermined the war on terrorism." He had some criticism for the Clinton administration, namely failing to bomb terror training camps in Afghanistan, but forgave Clinton's ineffectiveness with the quip, "at least he did something."
Several weeks ago Cedric Brown, a man in the audience at a Kerry campaign appearance, stood up and asked the candidate to name the world leaders who privately offered him their support. In his refusal to answer, Kerry asked Brown if he was a Republican. "What are you? ... You answer the question. Did you vote for George Bush?" When Brown answered yes, Mr. Kerry and the partisan crowd had all the justification they needed to dismiss everything he'd said. When Brown's voice was drowned out by the crowd Kerry said, "See, democracy works both ways."
Perhaps we should apply Kerry's Democracy of Partisan Dismissal to Mr. Clarke's charges as well. During his public testimony to the 9/11 commission on Wednesday, Clarke responded to this statement by former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman: "And because of my real, genuine long-term admiration for you, I hope you'll resolve that credibility problem, [conflicting testimony] because I'd hate to see you become totally shoved to one side during a presidential campaign as an active partisan selling a book."
Clarke's response was, "Let me talk about partisanship here... let's just lay that one to bed. I'm not working for the Kerry campaign. Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. And I asked for a Republican ballot."
At the time, watching it live, I wondered why he didn't just say he voted for Bush since that's clearly the impression he intended to give, but concluded that this was simply meant as a rhetorically dramatic way to say the same thing. I was surprised then today, four days later, to hear Tim Russert ask Clarke after the final commercial break, "And we're back. Did you vote for George Bush in 2000?" Clarke's swift and surprising answer was, "No, I did not." Russert: "You voted for Al Gore." Clarke: "Yes, I did."
Wow. Bombshell! A career public servant who, despite claiming to be a registered Republican still votes for Al Gore, sees the election go to the other candidate after a contested outcome in Florida, opposed any military action in Iraq from the beginning to the end and has resigned his government career forever - Active partisan selling a book.
All of this discussion about what actions were taken before various terror attacks and whether it was "enough" or not are of negligible importance compared to the questions everyone should be asking: What actions did the two administrations take after those terror attacks? Which attacks were not followed by more of the same, and did America's prior responses have any bearing on repeat attacks that did, or did not, occur? As Rush Limbaugh said on Friday, "Sometimes a cowboy has to take action because the sherriff is corrupt."
UPDATE 1: Drudge reports Clarke 'to earn over $1 million for book.' Also, Leslie Stahl admits that most of the email to 60 Minutes regarding the Clarke interview last week was critical of the segment, of Clarke, and of 60 Minutes.
UPDATE 2: Cox & Forkum posted a new cartoon today that beautifully illustrates the true nature of what Kerry and Co. describe as "Bush's negative attacks."
Posted by JohnGalt at March 28, 2004 11:41 AM