WP 3/25 - On trial by GOP, Clarke is Cool in the Hot Seat

[swag]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22218-2004Mar24.html

Exc:



On Trial by GOP, Clarke Is Cool in the Hot Seat

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 25, 2004; Page A01


The Sept. 11 commission shed its bipartisan spirit and turned a Senate hearing room into a courtroom yesterday for the testimony of Richard A. Clarke, the White House counterterrorism chief-turned-Bush administration whistle-blower.




Democrats, prosecuting President Bush for ignoring terrorism before the 2001 attacks, used the newly famous Clarke as their star witness. Republican commission members -- armed with fresh information on Clarke released by the White House yesterday through Fox News -- played defense lawyers determined to discredit the witness as a closet Democrat.

"You've got a real credibility problem," Republican commissioner John F. Lehman told Clarke, the author of a new book eviscerating Bush's terrorism policies. "And because of my real genuine long-term admiration for you," he continued, "I hope you'll resolve that credibility problem, because I'd hate to see you become totally shoved to one side during a presidential campaign as an active partisan selling a book."

Democratic commissioner Bob Kerrey sought to build the witness's credibility and objected to the Fox News report one Republican commissioner was using to undermine Clarke. "Well, Mr. Clarke, let me say at the beginning that everything that you've said today and done has not damaged my view of your integrity," the former Nebraska senator declared.

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