Clarke book - here is some good info from the dust jacket

[peacetalksforall]

that can reaffirm what has been said about him to counter the spin.

Against All Enemies Free Press/Simon & Shuster Richard A. Clarke

Specialized in counterterrorism for two decades.
Served seven Presidents.
Worked inside the White House under Clinton and Bush.

It claims he is the one person who knows more about Usama Bin Laden and al Queda than anyone else in the country.

Retained by Bush in the position of counterterrorism czar.

Tried from day one to persuade the Bush administration to take al Queda as seriously as had Clinton.

Denied the opportunity to make his case to Bush for months.

Had the impression that they had never even heard of al Queda.

They even advocated long-discredited conspiracy theories about Saddam’s involvement in previous attacks in the U.S.

Clarke was White House crisis manager on 9/11.

First Bush ignored existing plans to attack al Queda, then he made disastrous decisions when he finally did pay attention.

More formal titles from bio section:

Started federal service in 1973 in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as analyst on nuclear weapons and European security issues.
Under Reagan: Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence.
Under Bush Sr: Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs.
Under Clinton: First National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Conterterrorism from May 1998.

Continued in that position under Bush, Jr. (There is nothing about a change in title, but the word is that there was some kind of change in classification downwards under Bush Jr?)
Left the service in March 2003.

[Florida_Geek]

1. And with most books of this type

For it to come out one year after he started writing it is normal.

[chookie]

2. If they were really so focused on terrorism from the start....

Clarke charges that terrorism simply wasn't on their radar screen, that they were focused on finding a way to take out Iraq, and to renew Star Wars high tech missile defence.

The WH denies this, saying they were focused on Al Qaeda from the very beginning.

But if this is true, WHY did they marginalize, and then demote, Clarke, who "shared" their passion for countering terrorism and going after Al Qaeda?

Condi said today that Clarke simply was not invited to particpate in the intense meetings that the "grownups held daily to combat terrorism. If so, why? Heck -- if Condi is not lying (ha ha), then why would they not want a guy who was expert in terrorism and Al Qaeda on their team? I mean, if he came to meetings and babbled about movies he had seen or blamed UFOs for terrorism, I could see them easing him off the team. But as he was so passionate about Al Qaeda and terrorism -- why the snub?

I think the obvious conclusion is that, yet again, Clarke was not telling His Chimperial Highness what he wanted to hear. There's that familiar pattern again....

[keithyboy]

5. Any (way) But Clinton's...Bush admin mantra coming into office

They all were too busy talking about missing "Ws" on typwriters, the alleged (and since proven untrue) trashing of the WH, and the also proven untrue allegations about furniture that the Clintons allegedly stole from the WH. Don't you guys remember? It was all about "no nation-building" and bringing the troops home from Bosnia and Kosovo because the Clinton administration had no "exit strategy." It almost sounds hysterically funny were it not so sad that so many lives have been lost on 9/11 and since. It was all about getting those big contracts going for "missile defense" "tax cuts" for the wealthy and undoing anything that Clinton accomplished...against the land mine treaty, the ABM treaty, against the conference on racism, against sending UN observers into the ME (something the Palestinians had asked for even under clinton), against taking the Rudman/Hart report on terrorism seriously, against picking up on the N.Korean situation...anybody else?

[peacetalksforall]

3. In reply to The WH remarks about Clarke and his book

Here are the first two paragraphs of the Preface about why he wrote a book = good fodder against the critics:

Quote
From Inside The White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon for thirty years, I disdained those who departed government and quickly rushed out to write about it. It seemed somehow inappropriate to expose, as Bismarck put it, "the making of sausage." Yet I became aware after my departure from federal service that much that I thought was well known was actually obscure to many who wanted to know.

I was frequently asked "exactly how did things work on 9/11, what happened?". In looking at the available material, I found that there was no good source, no retelling of that day which history will long mark as a pivot point. Then, as I began to think about teaching graduate students at Georgetown and Harvard, I realized that there was no single inside account of the flow of recent history that had brought us to September 11, 2001, and the events that followed from it.

Unquote

[mainer]

4. Louis Freeh comes off looking like a moron!

I'm reading the book now. Freeh sounds really stupid in the book -- he really had no idea what was going on.

Clinton comes off looking very capable.

[keithyboy]

6. Freeh knew what was going on. It was all about smearing Clinton.

That's what occupied Louis!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

7. Louis Freeh hated John O'Neill, and got rid of him

Freeh is also a conservative Catholic and friends with Justice Scalia.