Tim Blair

Ah...Well, that might explain a great deal. No wonder Dunlop thinks Clarke "oozes" integrity and apparently regards Bill Clinton as the paragon of virtue - Tim Dunlop lacks even the level of honesty of the two aforementioned individuals!

Will he joined the "White House lied and Saddam told the truth" chorus next?

C.T.

b-b-but he felt pressured to do it, you know...

Clarke is like a smart-munition in reverse: in addition to blowing himself up he has landed right on the heads of his deployers.

OUCH!

oh oh oh and don't forget that WE ALL KNEW THAT WHEN IT HAPPENED and the justification was that obl's family had 'disowned' him. remember--the bin laden's give tons of cash to many institutions, including harvard, and are not considered terrorists. the administration and the fbi cleared the flight that landed all over the country as airspace was closed. guess the bin laden's knew all the right folks...

i don't understand the point of this post--is it another attempt to demonize clarke, or an attempt to make the demonizers look petty?

Anyone who saw his testimony... and isn't locked in the blogospheric dungeon of conservative groupthink knows how this went down. Nice try. For the triumphantly misinformed, I guess it's persuasive. Reputable sources are cleanly against you on this... I guess it's a vast Left-Wing conspiracy that reaches even as far as Fox News.

Clark was pretty sure who he thought did it on Sep. 12th.

...Clarke finds the President wandering alone in the Situation Room on Sept. 12, “looking like he wanted something to do.” Clarke writes that Bush “grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room” — an impetuous move, perhaps, but hardly the image that Clarke depicted on television, of the President dragging in unwitting staffers by their shirt-collars. The Bush in these pages sounds more ruminative than intimidating: “I know you have a lot to do and all, but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.” When Clarke responds by saying that “al-Qaeda did this,” Bush says, “I know, I know, but see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred.....” Again Clarke protests, after which Bush says “testily,” “Look into Iraq, Saddam.”... excerpt from the Time Magazine story, "Richard Clarke, at War With Himself

How much could have changed between Sep. 11th and 12th?

Eli + Reggie

The White House has recordings of all official phone traffic. When Clark's lies don't line up, only pin heads like you will still believe him.

Papertiger, I would have been more than testy if I was the President and someone like Clarke was arrogantly telling me on September 12th that Iraq could not have been involved. Frankly, I'd have fired him no later than Sept 13th.

Let's see, rummaging through the Payola Files...

BNP Paragas,
Galloway,
Ritter,
...

Too bad they're not in alpha order, where are the C's?

INXLSXLSXLSXS will be upset to know that Clarke jumped on Al Qaeda so early.

Tsk Tsk.

Bush may have had a sense about Clarke—perhaps that Clarke gets stuck in preconceptions. Whatever. We all quickly believed Al Qaeda did it, carried it out, but who of us was so sure—so sure at that time—that Saddam wasn’t actively involved? Who of us wouldn’t have wanted every lead double-checked? After all, we had failed to anticipate & prevent the 9/11/01 attacks themselves! So on 9/12/01 Clarke was so darned, so thick=headedly, sure & confident about all our other intel? Bush was not being unreasonable in asking for any possible Saddam connection to be investigated—asking, for crying out loud, on September 12, 2001!

What’s weird & post facto is the way Clarke describes Bush as “dragging” him into the Situation Room—can it really be that Clarke the anti-terrorism czar was uneager to talk with Bush the President the day after the attacks? That simply is not credible. The proud Richard Clarke, didn’t leap at every opportunity to be useful & special in his role? Yet surely he did. And if he did, then he’s pettily lying about it now when he talks about having been “dragged” into the Situation Room by the President.

Well, clarke had an important appointment on the 12th and the president was so unreasonable. Imagine, that he would pull him off his tee time because because of some kerfuffle in NY. the nerve.

;)

John Kerry will be delighted at the Clarke media snowstorm. It's curtailed or hopefully just delayed widespread coverage of Kerry's denial than admission of his attendance at an anti-war vet's meeting in 1971 that discussed assassination of US senators.
At American Spectator

Clarke is playing to the emotions of people who are hearing what they want to hear, mostly people who were running on empty with the Iraq invasion, i.e., left wingers. "Bush lied, people died" can only go so far, y'know! They needed something to stir up the people.

So they pulled in Clarke, who seems to have the morals of a two bit hooker. Much (if not all) of the public evidence -- including his own words -- proves this. I would love to see what he told the 9/11 committee behind closed doors, like at least one panel member has requested.

In the end, this manipulating, greedy, lying, creep will get his. He may make money hand over first, and receive the adulations of crowds of people wearing tinfoil hats, but it's all a facade. And it'll crash down on him.

I look forward to it.

The term is sycophant. Clarke is one. It now appears he has moved on to browner patures. I hope he enjoys the view.

Attention, attention, please update your talking points.

The White House now admits that the Bush-Clark conversation on 9/12 took place. Clark's still a liar, of course, but don't mention the 9/12 meeting anymore.

Also, remember, despite Cheney's propensity to tell off the cuff lies, we no longer should defend the "out of the loop" lie. Rice has confirmed that Clark was in the loop, not out of the loop. On this topic, not sure what the official position is on whether to back up Cheney's reliance on the Doug Feith memo -- maybe just mumble something inaudibly or change the subject to oval office blowjobs or something.

Finally, don't attack Clark for authorizing the bin ladin family escape because that's still supposed to be ridiculed as a tin foil hat rumour.

Hope that helps, get back to work.

The discussion here & at other places that I’ve seen has presumed that the Bush-Clarke 9/12/01 discussion did take place. Who was denying it?

Who said that Clarke’s authorization of the Bin Laden family exit was supposed to be called a ridiculous rumor?

How much in or out of the loop is Clarke now supposed to have been?

your web page is an insult to human intelligence

So, what's the point of setting up a story which twists the facts to satisfy your spin, then giving us a link which simply refutes it?

What sort of cut-and-paste blogmeister are you anyway? You falling down on your game...

re grandstanding 'apology'

Brilliant "apology" by Dick Clarke.

Not only did he get to "apologize" to the 9/11 families (making him look good), but he also used that opportunity to call the government (Bush admin officials) "failures" for not preventing 9/11.

Clarke is like an angry "suicide bomber", a Dem pawn who's more than willing to take the whole Bush administration down with him.