There is still hope for us after all. Most americans likely never used the Web to find out Clarkes hypocrisy. Good that they can recognize it anyway.

Posted by: FH at April 10, 2004 01:05 PM

Clarke’s mistake was being too obvious.

He basically gave the clinton administration a pass for not doing enough in 8 years and hammered the Bush administration for not doing enough in 8 months.

Had he been equally hard on both administrations, his credibility would have gone a long way.

Not getting caught contradicting himself might have helped too…

Posted by: eric at April 10, 2004 02:07 PM

Democrats are throwing mud at Bush, hoping some might stick. The people tell them what they think of it.

Posted by: Ricky Vandal at April 10, 2004 03:00 PM

Also the way Clark does that smirky think with his mouth and looks downward instead of directly eye to eye… During several interviews on T.V. his facial and body gestures to me seemed snooty.

Posted by: Jeff MacMillan at April 10, 2004 03:01 PM

Americans are pragmatic.

Q: “Remember back in the 90s, when we were so hardcore on defence?”

A: “No.”

I hope the people in the back, out of the spotlight, were able to get the useful parts from Clarke. I think so, as that wouldn’t affect the way his public statements worked.

Posted by: David at April 10, 2004 04:48 PM

George
W. Bush John
Kerry Ralph
Nader Other (vol.)/
Undecided
New Newsweek Pool

% % % %
ALL 42 (Bush) 46 (Kerry) 4 (Nader) 8
Republicans 89 9 - 2
Democrats 8 84 4 4
Independents 39 41 8 12

Simply math is revealing:

An almost equal number of Republicans and Democrats would vote for and against their party’s candidate. In fact, slightly more Republicans (89%) than Democrats (84)% would vote so. An almost equal number of independents voted for Bush as they did for Kerry (slightly more (41%) for Kerry than for Bush (39%).

Thus, factoring in all the percentages, Bush and Kerry should be in a dead heat — if anything, Bush does slightly better(5% more in partisan vote, 2% less in independent vote - net +3%).

Then how does Kerry come up with a 4 point lead? The answer, quite simply, must be that more democratics were sampled.

Posted by: voter at April 10, 2004 05:42 PM

George
W. Bush John
Kerry Ralph
Nader Other (vol.)/
Undecided
New Newsweek Pool

% % % %
ALL 42 (Bush) 46 (Kerry) 4 (Nader) 8
Republicans 89 9 - 2
Democrats 8 84 4 4
Independents 39 41 8 12

Simply math is revealing:

An almost equal number of Republicans and Democrats would vote for and against their party’s candidate. In fact, slightly more Republicans (89%) than Democrats (84)% would vote so. An almost equal number of independents voted for Bush as they did for Kerry (slightly more (41%) for Kerry than for Bush (39%).

Thus, factoring in all the percentages, Bush and Kerry should be in a dead heat — if anything, Bush does slightly better(5% more in partisan vote, 2% less in independent vote - net +3%).

Then how does Kerry come up with a 4 point lead? The answer, quite simply, must be that more democratics were sampled.

Posted by: voter at April 10, 2004 05:43 PM

The race right now probably is a dead heat. It comes down to the swing states again, but dont forget the incumbent adventage. Incumbents always gain votes on election day. The majority of on the fence voters that walk in the polling booth will go towards the known quantity if they havent been swayed by the election. So the challenger usually has to have a lead of 4 or 5 points in the pre-election polling to stand a chance. This election could look like a dead heat the day before, and Bush could still win in a ‘landslide’ (anything over a million votes is a landslide these days).

Posted by: Mark Buehner at April 10, 2004 06:26 PM

Too soon to tell on poll accuracy, but I do expect continued growth in Job Numbers in the months ahead.

Posted by: leaddog2 at April 10, 2004 07:29 PM

Those poll numbers are interesting, but they’re not the way the story is being reported in some segments of the media. The usual flunkies for the Democrats are trying to tell us that the American public is full of questions concerning what the Bush Administration did. That’s so they can keep the melodrama running and hopefully screw Bush in November.

Posted by: popd at April 10, 2004 11:18 PM

I have worked with people since I was a very young man. You get to where you can tell a lot about a person after a very short conversation. The difference between Clarke and Rice was very simple to see.

Clark: a weasel. Heavy smell of Bush hating liberal democrat with a huge lack of integrity.

Rice: reeks with integrity. The kind of person that probably would not lie to anyone.

Posted by: Jeff B at April 10, 2004 11:44 PM

Wow, well if the Republican’s smear campaign against Clarke worked then it clearly proves that Clarke must have been shilling his book. So what if the sale was delayed for 3 months while waiting for the Bush white house to clear it. So what if none of his factual allegations were disputed. These polling numbers prove that he was lying… in Republican bizzaro world…

Posted by: typhonus at April 11, 2004 12:11 AM

Typhonus,

Wake up and Smell the Coffee. Americans are making up their own minds about Richard Clarke. 27% of Americans view him unfavorably, in spite of the CBS and New York Times spewing of hatred. His allegations about al-Queda have been around since 1993 in at least one case, did you even know that?

Those same media outlets (and other liberal shills) were spewing garbage during the 2002 election and are doing it again this year. They cannot stand it when most of America DOES NOT FOLLOW their commands. (Praise the Lord)!

I hope that the FBI and CIA will be forced to share information in the future. I am NOT a believer that Bureaucrats will ever accomplish much.

Posted by: typhonus at April 11, 2004 07:56 AM

Typhonus wrote
” So what if none of his factual allegations were disputed ”

Yeah, all two of those ‘FACTUAL’ allegations… ha ha
Go back to Jeffs statement….. Clark: A weasel !!

Posted by: dickd at April 11, 2004 10:17 AM

“So what if none of his factual allegations were disputed.”

How DO you dispute a factual allegation? Clarke’s problem was that the majority of his allegations were UNFOUNDED allegations. Someone above was quite right in stating that his motives were far too obvious. He gave a pass to those who he thought listened to him, and got pissed at those who thought he was a short-sighted bureaucrat.

Rice tore him to shreds. That and his own words. And this commission has become a joke.

What, truly, will be accomplished by this farcical public hearing? It’s become a political point scoring tournament. A shame on both houses. This outcome is perhaps inevitable. Given that, it should have been postponed until after the war is won, as was the Pearl Harbor investigation. This will result in nothing more than political maneuvering, and damaging information now available to our enemies. Instead of reducing the chance of another 9/11, it may have increased it.

Posted by: dave at April 11, 2004 03:06 PM

“Rice tore them to shreds.”

Yep that’s why Kerry is ahead in the polls.

Truth

Posted by: Truth at April 11, 2004 10:19 PM

Truth,

Kerry is NOT AHEAD in the Polls. Go look at all of them but Newsweek. It is the only one where Kerry Leads.

Posted by: leaddog2 at April 11, 2004 10:36 PM

Leapdog2,

In June Iraq’ sovereignty will be handed to the council. To whom exactly nobody knows. Then will start the real fight for power.

If there is an honest election the Islamists will win and a second Islamic state will be created in the region.

If there are no election there will be a civil war.

One way or another the dream of creating an Iraq run by the friends of the US is doomed.

The turmoil will develop probably around the US election. It will show the failure of this administration’s policy in Iraq with the waste of hundreds of US soldiers at a cost of $200 billion.

One way or another WB’s reelection is screwed.

Truth

Posted by: Truth at April 11, 2004 11:03 PM

Suuuuure, “Truth”.

First, the Dems tried to say the war in Afghanistan would be another Vietnam. The results shut up the Democrats;

Then, they tried to say Iraq would cost “tens of thousands of US servicemen’s lives” (thank you, Mr. Hart), but we took Baghdad in record time.

Now, with far less than a thousand service deaths in Iraq, an interim constitution in place, better public services than Iraq has known in a century, the Democrats hope to compare it to Vietnam, a ridiculous comparison, except that in Vietnam, too, the Democrats ran away from the challenge and the opportunity to make a region of the world better for the people who live there, and safer for America.

Now, that’s Truth!

Posted by: GDubya at April 12, 2004 09:55 AM

This is what’s funny. There’s a poll last week showing Kerry in lead over Bush, and it dismissed by all you RePubs. I think the words were somthing like, “polls mean nothing; they’re not accurate.” Blah, blah. Then there’s a poll in favor of one of the members of the devil’s, 666 administration, and you’re all touting the virutues of the results. Haha. So hypocritical, but not unexpected.

Hey, guess what?: Bush and his administration knew a lot about terrorist plots to attack the U.S. prior to 9/11, but they did absolutely nothing. Bush is a failure in economics and domestic and foreign policy. And his big lie about being tough on terrorism is just more smoke and mirrors. I’ll be so glad when duh ya and his administration are gone.

Posted by: byebyebush at April 12, 2004 11:46 AM

Ooooooh, middle-school-level name-calling!

I’m sure impressed!

…

Actually, I’m sorta hungry for facts and substance. And for some reason, the Kerry camp never has any.

Guess that means I’m staying with Bush, after all. A good response and plan beats the stuffing outta rhetoric and posture, especially when the Dems serve it up with all that vitriol.

Posted by: GDubya at April 12, 2004 12:03 PM

Hungry for substance? You shouldn’t visit this site? No substance here. Just RePubs with blinders arguing against Dems with blinders.

Now, pull that shotgun outta the back of your pickup GDubya and shoot some pheasant or squirrels or something.

Posted by: byebyebush at April 12, 2004 12:19 PM

Whatever, ‘bbB’.

I own a sedan, not a pickup. And I am more likely to use my mind than a firearm these days.

I find plenty of substance here, bbB, just not from screaming-whiny Left-wingers like you.

Now go change that daipee, or have your nanny do it for you, and you’ll feel much better.

Posted by: GDubya at April 12, 2004 12:45 PM

Now go change that daipee, or have your nanny do it for you, and you’ll feel much better.

Haha, that made me laugh. :) Give me more!

Posted by: byebyebush at April 12, 2004 12:49 PM

Sorry, I presumed that was what that smell from your direction meant.

The alternative, that it emenates from your level of cogency, was less palatable.

Posted by: GDubya at April 12, 2004 12:56 PM

{chant} ignore the trolls, ignore the trolls…

Back to Dr. Rice. Is it only me, or does anyone else think she would make a great President?

Posted by: v at April 12, 2004 01:36 PM

I don’t doubt for a moment, that Rice would make a great President.

The question is, seeing what happens to intelligent and proactive Republicans with vision, will she be willing to endure a campaign?

The last thing Democrats want, is for the first woman or black President of the United States to be a conservative, which means they will go all out to destroy Condi if they can.

Posted by: GDubya at April 12, 2004 02:26 PM

The title of this article seems as odd to me as Dr. Rice’s testimony. Nearly all other testimony to date (including most that has come from other administration personnel) seems to suggest that Clarke’s view of what happened with regard to the Bush-administration pre-911 response is closer to the truth than the “whistling in the dark” provided by Rice’s testimony. It would seem those polled are largely detached from objectivity required in this new and dangerous world (or perhaps they simply haven’t been reading the staff reports).

This administration seems to be following a troubling pattern of not having to set a goal of winning the war against terrorists, but rather setting the bar low enough so that they only need to make it appear as though they are doing so. They are becoming so consistent at it this that I guess it must be a campaign theme.

That the media poop-scoopers have really rallied behind their beloved Condi is hardly surprising. The Rove command post team is to be congratulated for having made sure they packed the early polls with an intent of making the issue of this administration’s bungling “go away” in time for the election.

The particularly odd thing I find about the reaction to Rice’s testimony is the seemingly ambivalent response to her deliberate effort to argue there was nothing the administration could have done. During her testimony she openly admitted that the current administration was “blind” to the hijackers even though we now know (by their own admission) that they had prior reason to expect a high-jacking and that New York buildings were being targeted. It does seem odd in light of her sterling performance of her job that she never picked up on the fact that the FAA and the Department of Transporation was never officially notified about this intelligence.

Perhaps a more important question might have been whether she knew for a fact that our president actually took time out from his busy vacation schedule to actually read the brief. It is troubling that he has already admitted that he doesn’t read much.

It seems astounding that Dr. Rice couldn’t bring herself to even acknowledge that she learned anything from the tragedy, perhaps except for how to put a favorable partisan spin on it. I guess if we want to have another 911 type disaster, we can vote for this team since they pledge not to learn from their mistakes.

Rice’s remarkable number of excuses, her defensive style, and her attempts to run out the clock with long-winded, pre-rehearsed responses, only served to highlight her prior inaction or perhaps missdirected response to terrorists (Hey I own stocks in defense contractors too so all that star wars stuff is vitally important even though it does help us much with terrorism). I can only surmise, using the reasoning expressed by some, that her on the job performance in stopping the 911 tragedy before it actually happened clearly makes her ready to tackle a position of even more responsibility (Secretary of State, President, Vice-President?). Seems curious to me why do so many see such obvious failure as success. However, in this dangerous age it does bother me that so many of my fellow countrymen are so easily outsmarted. At least the national security advisor shouldn’t be among them.

It does seem strange that she was unable to tout her meticulous follow-up on any of those 70 odd “separate investigations” into terrorist activity pre-911 that were supposed to have been ongoing. Her response: follow-up “is not the job of the national security advisor.” I guess leadership was to be found in someone else’s department. This too is oddly viewed as a virtue for a national security advisor. Clearly, her response was so virtuous and convincing that the 911 commission should no doubt recommend that the national security advisor be tasked with NEVER following up on potential leads.

It also seems odd that the stated reason for inaction was that she needed time to plan for a comprehensive solution (“no swatting of flies”), but then the result of all this strategic thinking and efficiency was to keep the same guy in charge and not really spell out anything that materially differed from the Clinton administration approach, except perhaps the posting of a sign to be posted in all government offices that reads “NO SHAKING THE TREES”. One can only imagine how busy they all were, with their fly-swatters in hand at the few anti-terror meetings this administration did hold. No doubt they were all non-indigenous flies too. Unfortunately, her rhetoric doesn’t really seem to explain this inconsistency in her testimony. When given the opportunity to respond directly, she was unable to address the substance of the question asked by former senator Kerry. It seems peculiar that such indecision/inability is so ardently viewed as yet another virtue.

Seems to me that now the scoopers have gathered up the results, they are now in a position to take the smell of all that poop and package it as a new fragrance. It seems to be in high demand. Certainly, Karl Rove will be proud and Bin Laden won’t be loosing any sleep over the outcome of all this. Lets only hope that it won’t get in the way of the poor dogs on the front lines who have to outfox terrorists so we can win this “war”.

Posted by: sgposs at April 12, 2004 06:00 PM

A clue for sgposs: This war is real.

Your take, however, remains fake.

Posted by: GDubya at April 12, 2004 06:10 PM

sgposs For a minute there, you had me.

(Rolls eyes and yawns)

Click.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at April 13, 2004 09:49 AM

I thought that sgposs was Foresta and started to scroll past—then I saw something much worse.

There’s another one.

Posted by: jack at April 13, 2004 03:18 PM

Don’t worry Jack. Just a warped Father Twilight poking around. Sounds sort of like Crazy Dennis.

Posted by: leaddog2 at April 13, 2004 06:01 PM

The killing is definitely real and this administration is insisting on pursuing an incoherent, ideological, and too often incomprehensible approach that will surely fail to achieve our stated objectives (to the extent that they can be clearly defined). Perhaps for this reason, it is increasingly difficult to any longer suffer fools gladly, even if they do work for Karl Rove.

But you don’t have to believe me or watch the twilight (or whatever that is supposed to mean), just watch events unfold. I only wish it weren’t so.

I remain amused by the little puts that are somehow meant to deflect serious discussion of unfolding events. Perhaps, thats now all that is left to the credibility of this administration and their political campaign. There is certainly no effort at a serious defense of the approach now being taken, or worse any effort to reach out to all Americans to explain what few credible options we now have left. Instead we see only more cheerleading and stereotypic fidgeting of the political puppets that hop up and down, eager to heap verbal abuse on any who dare question whether the policies of this administration make any sense for the long term health of our nation. I guess Bill and Monica gave them such good mileage they can’t seem to hop off their hobby horses. Far too comfortable in the saddle, I suppose. Or have we become so seriously morally impaired that we now believe only that more killing is the only answer? Oh well, lets not dwell on the unpleasant. Didn’t you just love John Ashcroft’s explanation (It was Clinton’s fault). Now thats an original, if well worn excuse for passing the buck.

Didn’t you just love our prez’s response to the question of who we were going to turn power over to in Iraq on 30 June. “Ah, well I don’t know. A UN bureaucrat is going to have to tell me and then I’ll be in a position to let the American people know”. I guess that is about as consistent a rhetoric as anything I’ve heard so far. Never have I seen such a rambling performance on TV as tonight’s press conference.

Did we really invade Iraq only to hand it over to the Islamists? We could have accomplished that without invading. Boy, what an impressive plan for success. The Iranians have got to be licking their chops. No wonder some suggest that looking at the twighlight seems appropriate.

You have to be amused by new polls that suggest that support for the prez’s approach in Iraq now by 47 to 44%. Interestingly, the same poll also says by 50 to 47% that the prez doesn’t have a plan. You have to give that 3% credit for believing in the president even when they don’t believe he has a plan. The truth is often a heavy cross to bear. Maybe we can hope reality can begin to set in during the 2nd term. Or maybe the notion of “margin for error” is not such a reprehensible idea after all.

One does have to admit that this administration is remarkably creative when it comes to justifying its policies. So creative, in fact that they keep changing the rationale for it on a weekly basis. I guess it must be directed toward the TV generation, whose attention spans continue to shorten. Even more impressive is that they don’t ever make mistakes (if you believe that then no doubt you still believe that the Iraqis love us for invading). No wonder so may are star struck.

I don’t think its in our interest to call it a war, because this is precisely what the jihadists want and because both the term and the enemy are too vaguely organized for this to be useful or meaningful for us, should we have a hope to develop a winning strategy. Unfortunately, our fearless leader wants to continue to paint us as crusaders, thereby multiplying our enemies and distancing any potential allies, thereby making a bad situation worse. Who could have imagined that anyone could have united the Sunnis and the Shities (read all about it in the Wall Street Journal). You really don’t think this is progress do you?
But then their approach is a lot easier politically than attempting to seriously change hearts and minds that will be required to win.

Perhaps only after the elections when troop strength must be increased or perhaps doubled, will this become clearer to those who seem to be so righteous as to be blinded by the starlight. Shinsekei was a lot more steely eyed and a far better prognosticator. I’m sure Bush now regrets letting Rumsfeld fire him.

BTW. Does anyone know what happened to that mission accomplished banner? I heard a rumor that George Soros was trying to buy it.

It is interesting that the star struck seem to be developing an incredibly lousy record for predicting what is going to happen next. This may reflect a limited grasp of the reality of the situation.

Speaking of predictions. Any bets on how much the next installment for paying for all this is going to be? My bet is about $137B for year 2 of the war. With a $600B deficit now expect for 2nd quarter of 2004, and oil prices rising along with commodity prices and interest rates, the next installment is going to be a lot more painful. Fortunately, it can be postponed until after the election.

Posted by: sgposs at April 14, 2004 02:16 AM

Voter: Then how does Kerry come up with a 4 point lead? The answer, quite simply, must be that more democratics were sampled.

Kerry doesn’t have a 4 point lead he has a 4 percent lead. You math logic would work if we weren’t talking percentages. As it stands, your conclusion can not be supported by the polling data.

Posted by: Anthony at April 14, 2004 08:00 AM