The White House is answering Clarke

[CatWoman]

that was fast :D

White House dismisses former adviser's charges
Clarke's allegations of pre-9/11 failures called politically driven
Sunday, March 21, 2004 Posted: 10:11 PM EST (0311 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House is dismissing as a "red herring" charges from the administration's former counter-terrorism coordinator that President Bush has been more focused on Iraq than al Qaeda.

Richard Clarke detailed his allegations that Bush has done "a terrible job" battling terrorism during an interview Sunday night on CBS's "60 Minutes" and in a book to be published Monday.

A White House spokesman said Clarke is motivated by politics.

"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate," spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "And he has every right to do so. But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof -- should also come under scrutiny."

Clarke said he asked for a Cabinet-level meeting in January 2001, shortly after the president took office, to discuss the threat al Qaeda posed to the United States.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/21/bush.terror/index.html

[playahata1]

1. Whatsa matter, George?

IF THE CAP FIT, LET DEM WEAR IT.

[mourningdove92]

2. Oh sure, pin a derogotory label on it and it will go away?

Right? I noticed that while the "WH spokesman" derided Clarke, he said nothing to refute the things Clarke said.

[Fovea]

34. another non denial denial...

Just like old Ben Bradlee said in All the President's Men.

[DustMolecule]

49. Yes! Exactly!

I hope that more people will go through the 'trouble' of learning/understanding what that means....the non denial denial.

Anyone who reads these posts, please go rent 'All the President's Men' and watch it (again?) and refresh yourselves!

[Skittles]

3. I watched that 60 Minutes report

it was scathing, and the "defense" looked pitiful.

[fearnobush]

15. So did that Media whore who tried to defend *'s at the end of the talk.

She was real pathetic. She asked Clarke, what about *'s speech after 911. what about his appeal? MEDIA WHORE, WHO GIVES A FUCKING SHIT ABOUT HIS GLAMOUR!!! He's fucking peice of shit, dirty criminal. One Hundred times worse than Nixon ever was.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

48. In her defense, as much as I hate to defend anyone in the mainstream...

...media, she made the questions appear to be an attack on Clarke, but the network aired the responses anyway. If they didn't want Clarke to talk in public they would have simply told him that they had changed their minds about interviewing him.

Think about that for a moment.

[XanaDUer]

4. Ah, the old "disgruntled employee" gambit...

:eyes:

Yeah, after 30 years' of service, Clarke is a disgruntled employee.

[fearnobush]

22. Yeah, and so was O'Neill, and so was Beers, and so was DiIulio

, and so was Whitman, and so The list keeps going and going and going and going.

[question everything]

45. My thoughts exactly. When it was O'Neill, they attacked him

but now when Clarke follows the same route, they become the norm, not the exception.

[buff2]

5. Oh yeah.......

Everybody is a liar but them. They are the truth tellers. No matter how many people expose these thugs,they are always wrong. God,I want this bunch to go down so bad....will we ever see it happen? You would think people would see what this bunch is all about. Pathetic.

[roguevalley]

8. if he was disgruntled, why wait two more years to quit? they look so

pitiful. Amazing. Red herring? How?

[fearnobush]

6. Bush is weak on terror, Bush is weak on terror

Bush is weak on terror, Bush is weak on terror, Bush is weak on terror, Bush is weak on terror. I have been screaming it a from the mountain tops since he engaged in this illegal war in Iraq. Bush has no clue. The PNAC Neo-con-victs are weak on terror. Only a true Democrat, like FDR, like JFK, like Harry Truman can save us. Kerry is that man. Bush is weak on terror!!!!!

[Career Prole]

7. WH mouthpiece Dan Bartlett said

"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate," spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "And he has every right to do so. But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof -- should also come under scrutiny."

Dan...buddy...he's not an idiot. I'm fairly certain he was aware of the ramifications of tackling the most vicious and vindictive administration it has ever been our misfortune to see in action. I think by writing a book and appearing on national television he was stating clearly "Take your best shot"
(I didn't want to say "Bring it on" again!)

[qanda]

18. And what does being in the middle of a presidential campaign

Have to do with anything? I could see if Clarke was a candidate or if he was campaigning for Kerry, but that's not the case. They really sound desperate-- it must be true!

[shanti]

43. clarke is a true patriot!

i just hope he has plenty of protection :scared:

[madrchsod]

9. jesus christ

wasn`t clarke one of their guys? he just snuck in to the meetings, they didn`t know he was there? only the bush ass lickers will believe the whitehouse....

[SoCalDem]

10. He should offer to be hooked up to a polygraph

and re-state his allegations.. and challenge * to do the same..

Let's have some REAL.. reality TV :)

[Robin Hood]

11. What about O'Neill?

O'Neill's account of the administrations behavior is similar to Clarkes account of what the admin was doing(or not doing)pre 9/11. How do they explain that?

[alcuno]

12. I support further scrutiny of everyone. Do the Bushies?

Clarke, Cohen, and Berger are all going to say this week that they warned the WH. Let's scrutinize that further.

[justgamma]

13. Heck yeah, it's political !

He knows the danger of Shrub remaining in office.

[i_c_a_White_Ghost]

20. White house is so out of touch with reality

This Administration is amazing, they deny everything, as if everyone but they are wrong!

[uhhuh]

14. Easy answer

Yes, it is about politics. This is an election year. If Clarke thinks the chimp is doing a suck ass job, he should say so when we have a chance to do something about it.
If he waited until after the election, and we were to have antother attack under a chimp administration(shudder), the same pukes would be asking why he didn't say something sooner.
He worked under several administrations. If he thinks these guys are so bad that the people need to know this now, it may be an attempt to hurt smirky's election chances.
This is as stupid an argument as saying that Kerry shouldn't say any thing bad about the chimp because it's an election year.

[readmylips]

16. Clarke's 30yrs of service...

The bushies now say that Clarke is motivated by politics ...politically driven. That sounds like a very stupid excuse coming from the bush criminals. Clarke has served under 4 presidents and never made his name or his status political.

The bushies are liers and criminals.

[roguevalley]

44. he put Tenet in the clear mostly. Tenet tried. Lots of people said so.

This should put more people forward to corroborate. :)

[vetwife]

47. This song is getting real old from the Whitehouse someone hit eject !

It is either Partisian politics.....Clinton or 9-11.
They sure better change their tune......They have ticked off a lot of their own. The record needs ejecting and you know what the repugs in congress are getting nervous don't you think ?

[jenk]

17. They'll do to him what they did to O'Neill.....

..... whatever that was, scared him back in line

Clarke will be on the talk shows soon enough saying that he'll vote for bush.

[blm]

28. I doubt it. Clarke is a tough bird. He was tight with John O'Neill, too.

He knew how John O'Neill felt betrayed by BushInc's refusal to take terrorism seriously.

John O'Neill was killed on 9-11.

Clarke knows BushInc is to blame.

[fearnobush]

29. I don't think so. Not this time. Clarke means business. He knows

the truth and knows more than what O'neill was privy too, he also knows what happened to O'Neill. Is O'Neill still alive today? Besides, Bush took a dip in the polls after the O'Neill book hit the shelves.

[Oilwellian]

19. Isn't it past Junior's bedtime?

Poor, poor thing. To be up so late fretting over the Clarke interview. Lovvve it! :D

"And he has every right to do so. But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof -- should also come under scrutiny."

That line is a beauty. So it was Clarke's inaction...riiiight.

[LividLiberal]

21. Wow, let the trashing begin

[glarius]

23. How many besides Clarke & O'Neill must there be before they are taken

seriously by the public?....This is quite incredible that high-up officials like these two would say what they have about their president. Wasn't there someone else who said similar things a year or so ago who no longer works there?...Surely this will be extremely damaging to Bush?....

[peacetalksforall]

24. Bartlett is one of two that supposedly 'lost' Bushies' Guard documents

and cleaned his driving records.

[peacetalksforall]

25. You know, they are always whining about Bush being in the

middle of something like he is a Lord.

That argument is designed to appeal to the 70 and 80 year old faithfuls.

[Kadie]

26. So,

"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate," spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "And he has every right to do so. But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof -- should also come under scrutiny."

Clarke served under Reagan, Papa Bush, Clinton, and Bushie. He takes a stand and tries to get Bushie and his gang to take some responsibility and they say that people should question his judgement. hmmmm

Hopefully people will take to heart Clarke's 30 years of public service and really listen to what he has to say.

[davekriss]

27. White House Use of Logical Fallacy

>>"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate," spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "And he has every right to do so. But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof -- should also come under scrutiny."<<

They claim "red herring" then turn around and use circumstantial ad hominem.

From the Nizkor Project, here: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-hominem.html :

"A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person's circumstances (such as the person's religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.). The fallacy has the following forms:

(1) Person A makes claim X.
(2) Person B asserts that A makes claim X because it is in A's interest to claim X.
(3) Therefore claim X is false.

A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy because a person's interests and circumstances have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made. While a person's interests will provide them with motives to support certain claims, the claims stand or fall on their own. It is also the case that a person's circumstances (religion, political affiliation, etc.) do not affect the truth or falsity of the claim. This is made quite clear by the following example: 'Bill claims that 1+1=2. But he is a Republican, so his claim is false.'"

The White House retort is the best example of circumstantial ad hominem that one can find. It rings false; it is a logical fallacy (proves nothing), and let's hope nobody is fooled by it.

My hats off to you, Richard Clarke, for your courage and honesty.

[kodi]

30. object lesson of GOP attacks: they ignore facts & dwell on narrative

its their MO.

when the facts get in the way of the narrative, go with the narrative. in this case, the GOP narrative is that clarke is a bad guy not because he told the truth, but that the truth doesn't matter as much as why clarke is talking now.

in this way the GOP misdirects away from the facts and points to a narrative that places anything said at all as suspect because of the motivations behind clarke's actions.

[spanone]

31. You're either with bush* or you're against him.

[Bake]

42. Fer him or agin him:

Count me as one of those firmly in the AGAINST column!

Bake

[BigBigBear]

32. Yes, everyone has an agenda

O'Neill had one. Clarke has one. Karin Kwiatkowski has one. Ray McGovern has one.

If nothing else, this administration has been unable to secure the loyalty of dedicated public servants - wonder why.

Too bad not a single administration official can point to a single thing Bush or Rice did prior to 9/11 against Al Qaeda terror, or a single thing the administration said about Saddam's threat to the US that turned out to be accurate.

[Virginian]

39. Don't forget Joe Wilson.

They took aim at him through his wife. Who knows what they did to O'Neill to get him to back-pedal from his original assertions.

They will go after these other two also. The morning talk show interviews with Clarke will be revealing. If he also glosses over some of the things he said on 60 minutes, someone should come right out and ask him if he has been threatened in any way by the White House.

[Sparkly]

33. First of all, it's not new

It's only new as "news." What Clarke's saying has been known for a long time! Others have said it, and doesn't Al Franken's book (Lying Liars) discuss Clarke specifically in the "Operation Ignore" chapter?

So they can't say this was "sprung" with election-year timing. They also can't claim an entire year as a truth-free time period (any more than they can claim the first year of Shrub's term as a responsibility-free time period as in "if you attack us in the first nine months we just won't be ready"). Nor can they claim that this is the ideal timing for such "news" even if it WERE news -- that would be October.

They are so lame.

[koopie57]

35. This is such good news

the more time Bush has to fend off things like this, the more time Kerry can spend pushing his agenda to the people. I think Kerry is a good candidate and I don't agree with everything he has done, but I think he is smart and strong and certainly is not afraid of a good fight. And I think he will win even if Bush doesn't blow it cuz he is so incredidibly gawd awful stupid and arrogant. Everytime I see him I wonder when he is going to fart. He always looks like he needs, no not needs, wants to fart.

Did anyone see on C-Span where this old lady called up and chewed out Desmon TuTu (spell?) cuz he didn't respect Bush as the "deeply religious person" that he was. Deson TuTu started to chucked and this lady almost went nuts telling him "don't you laugh, Mr. Bush is a deeply religious man blah blah blah and he doesn't have a selfish bone in his body blah blah blah".

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

36. Just watched 60 minutes

Richard Clarke has served every administration since Reagan. I don't think chimpy boy will be able to spin or weasle his way out of this one.

[Jack Rabbit]

37. That's going to be their answer to everyting

"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate."

These are the same people who told us how much sarin and VX Saddam had just where he had them.

[Virginian]

38. Bush doesn't want to catch or kill Osama.

They are oil family friends. The bin Ladens may think Osama is a tad off his rocker, but they don't want anything bad to happen to him.

Bush avoided catching him before 9/11.

Bush didn't even send the drones back over for surveillance.

Bush aided the bin Laden family to escape the US without first being interviewed by the FBI.

The troops were not allowed to go in and get him at Tora Bora.

The Iraq war started before the Afghanistan war was finished and took the emphasis off of Osama.

Bush said Osama was irrelevant.

From 9/11 2002, Bush did not mention Osama bin Laden ever in any public speeches or comments until after the war began in Iraq.
Instead he would mention 9/11 and Saddam as if they were connected.

There are plenty more clues that point to this.

[kentuck]

40. Yes, how could anyone think they were more focused on Iraq ??

where would anyone get such an idea ?????

[TacticalPeek]

41. Woof, woof!

:evilgrin:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

46. Clarke must have found an open oozing wound in which...

...to pour a ton of salt.

Question: Who has more credibility...the NeoCon Junta that has lied to us on a daily basis since December 2000, or Clarke, a man that has served under four presidents and finds Junior to be the worst?