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25-03-04, 07:30 PM | #1 | |
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Richard Clarke starring in moveon.org Ad
Good thing Clarke isn't coming forth out of any political motivation.
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25-03-04, 08:14 PM | #2 |
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Daschle: Bush admin. Aims to Defame Clarke
David Espo WASHINGTON -- Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle accused the Bush administration Thursday of making former terrorism aide Richard Clarke the latest target in a campaign of "character assassination" against those who stand in President Bush's way. "They've known for months what Mr. Clarke was going to say," Daschle said in a Senate speech one day after the former White House aide sharply criticized the president's stewardship of the war on terror. "Instead of dealing with it factually, they've launched a shrill attack to destroy Mr. Clarke's credibility," Daschle said. The senator said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., and retired Amb. Joseph Wilson had suffered similar treatment at the hands of Bush's aides. "I saw the White House ferocity first hand," added Daschle, whom Republicans often depict as the Democrats' obstructionist-in-chief in Congress. The South Dakota Democrat spoke after Clarke appeared before the bipartisan commission that is investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Clarke, the author of a new book critical of Bush, testified that the administration accorded a lower priority to combatting al-Qaida when it came to power than the outgoing Clinton administration had shown. He also said the invasion of Iraq undermined the war on terror. The White House has mounted a furious counterattack, dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other officials to challenge Clarke. "He needs to get his story straight," said Rice, Bush's national security adviser, as the White House identified Clarke as the senior official who had praised Bush's anti-terrorism efforts in an anonymous briefing for reporters in 2002. And White House spokesman Scott McClellan continued the counterattack against Clarke on Thursday, saying that he "has a growing credibility problem." "He continues to make statements that are flat-out wrong," McClellan said. Bush defended his handling of the war on terror in a trip to New Hampshire during the day, without mentioning Clarke by name. "Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people," he said. The commission held two days of public hearings this week and is to hold additional public sessions next month. Daschle urged the White House to reverse course and permit Rice to answer questions in public, saying she "seems to have time to appear on every television show." Republican and Democratic members of the commission also have urged the administration to abandon its refusal to allow her to testify. Some GOP members of Congress, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they, too, believed Rice should appear, at least in part to offer a rebuttal to Clarke. "Some things are more important that politics, and Sept. 11 ought to be at the top of the list," Daschle said. "We need the facts on Sept. 11, not spin and character assassination." http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=ne...e%25 20Clarke |
25-03-04, 08:24 PM | #3 | ||
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The funny thing about it all, is that this character assassanation is being done with Clarke's own words. I'm sure you've already seen these, but here's a few lest you've forgotten.
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25-03-04, 08:47 PM | #4 |
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i saw that and i couldn’t believe that's the bush admin's big defense, it's so amazingly lightweight they might as well just admit clarke was right and go home (not that clarke didn't have witnesses, he did).
i guess you've never been to a retirement party. old gripes get momentarily placed aside for a few hours of bland, civil discourse, usually followed up by thank you notes of equally meaningless boilerplate. it’s an old and tired convention but it’s considered bad form to be critical around such times and anyway it leads to frameable wall plaques and never underestimate the power a wall plaque can have on a man’s psyche. better than a gold watch. but if ever anyone will be knocked off by his own words, it'll be clarke's last boss, george w. bush. - js. |
25-03-04, 09:00 PM | #5 | |
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25-03-04, 10:25 PM | #6 | |
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it keeps getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper
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Quite contrary to his bragging about supposedly warning everyone about Al-Qaeda
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26-03-04, 04:06 AM | #7 |
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Any Richard Clarke fans out there please read Losing Bin Laden by Richard Miniter. (Clarke was one of the main sources for the book) Please explain to me why on earth Clarke didn't run to 60 Minutes back then with his litany of grievances.
I'm sure it's all just dumb luck that the book's release and the tv interview happened to coincide with the first days of hearings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. "I'm an independent. I'm not working for the Kerry campaign," says Clarke. (but my best friend Rand Beers is the principal advisor to the Kerry campaign) The thing that made me laugh the most this week was Kerry's reaction. At first he "reserved judgement" before commenting, because he hadn't read the book yet. (As if his principal campaign advisor hadn't clued him in already) Then in his first public appearance after his vacation in Idaho, cameras catch him leaving his SUV.....but wait.....he's forgotten something in the vehicle....he reaches back inside.....and comes back out with.......the book. |
26-03-04, 05:39 AM | #8 | |
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26-03-04, 02:08 PM | #9 | |
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26-03-04, 07:33 PM | #10 | |
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selective declassifications solely for the purpose of destroying your critics is an abuse of power and a tactic of tyrants. how about declassifying everything, even the material awkward to bush, as a matter of fact how about putting bush under oath and asking him pointed and very specific questions? then we’ll have plenty of ammo to get at the truth, which is of course what everyone wants, including republicans, right? today we learn that condy rice who is everywhere, in front of any camera she can find, except ones where she first has to swear an oath, had to retract statements she herself made. 2 years ago she claimed nobody had any idea air attacks against the trade center were planned. turns out the cia had a few ideas about it. she said today well, nobody told her… she also contradicted both herself and cheney as the administration fell all over themselves attacking clarke. she said clarke's anti terrorism plan was no good, then contradicted herself later in the week saying the plan was ok. cheney tells limbaugh clarke didn’t know everything, he wasn't "in the loop", not so said rice - clarke had been at "every meeting." the most damaging of all is the white house's reversal of their denial that the now infamous sept 12th clarke-bush meeting happened, when bush insisted clarke “get the goods on iraq,” and only iraq, while the experts told bush “wait a minute, iraq had no connection to 9/11.” with witness after republican witness this week coming forward agreeing the meeting took place exactly as described by clarke, the white house today had no choice and flipped from denial to reluctant acknowlegdment, finally admitting the now infamous 9/12 meeting occured. thanks for hacking up a little peice of honesty mr. bush. graham, who presumably knows what’s in those meetings the republicans want to declassify says declassify it all guys, “bring it on!” as tom daschle sarcastically remarks, if they have something on clarke, try him for perjury. they don’t, and they can’t, but that shouldn’t stop the country getting at the truth – even if it means swearing in the entire white house. - js. |
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28-03-04, 07:52 AM | #11 | ||
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all this fuss about Clarke obscures a central point of his testimony: the invasion of Iraq is not helping the war on terrorism.
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28-03-04, 10:20 AM | #12 |
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Anyone with political aspirations, living outside the U.S., has to move there today.
Any accusation, no matter how damning, can be shuffled off as partisan politics. That's great. |
28-03-04, 03:12 PM | #13 | |
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28-03-04, 07:23 PM | #14 | |
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Clarke's not backing down an inch...gotta give him credit for some balls:
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28-03-04, 08:25 PM | #15 | |
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28-03-04, 08:36 PM | #16 |
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of course he's cashing in on the publicity
but at issue is his version of pre-9/11 events....the fact he's calling for all his previous testimony to be released means he's pretty confident about what the record will show. he's raising the stakes - will the administration call his bluff? |
28-03-04, 09:23 PM | #17 |
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i certainly hope they do
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29-03-04, 01:03 AM | #18 | |
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So, if Clarke had come out and said that, oh let's say Iraq, posed a clear and imminent danger, he should be strung up if he tried to recant? You've held jobs. If you want to keep your job sometimes you are told to tow the line. If I worked for Bush, I'd say the same for as long as I worked for him. I don't think that lessens my credibility, it just suggests I prefer employment. I used to work for a big box retailer. While we were not told to lie about various features of the extended warranty, we were expected to highlight the positive and ignore the negative. If that's not the line of work you can handle, you quit. If I had wrote a book about it, it wouldn't be less true. |
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29-03-04, 10:09 AM | #19 |
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Just as the Bush reelection team started their television campaign showing George W. Bush as strong on fighting terrorism, out comes a little known career government worker showing that George W. Bush and his aides actually dropped the ball on terrorism. This government worker isn't a Democrat leftover from the Clinton Administration but a Republican leftover from the Reagan Administration; he has worked for every administration since good old Uncle Ronny was in charge and he wasn't just any government worker, he was the White House counterterrorism aide, somebody that knows more than a little about fighting terrorists...
Richard Clarke the counterterrorism aide to Mr. Bush alleges that Bush and his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were in effect asleep at the wheel leading up to the 9-11 attacks and that neither Bush nor Rice took him or his advice seriously, instead bogging down his terrorism reports in underlings' meetings until it was too late. It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that both Bush and Rice were lightweights coming into their respective jobs and in hindsight were remiss before and after the 9-11 attacks... Rice had counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke meet with lower level people in the Bush White House unlike the Clinton White House where he met with the top level people, that in itself shows that Rice didn't take the terrorist threat as serious as her predecessor Sandy Berger... Bush claims CIA Director George Tenet briefed him regularly but if he briefed him and Bush didn't do anything than what good were the briefings? What did he brief Bush on, baseball? If the Bush White House took the threats seriously than why was the counterterrorism aide meeting with pee-ons? If Bush was briefed then why didn't he do something? The White House could have warned the airlines, they could have warned the public but they didn't. Bush was briefed and then he forgot about it; he did nothing... The FBI field agents knew something was up and reported to FBI headquarters in Washington and the FBI there did nothing. The CIA was briefing Bush but either there was nothing in the briefing or Bush wasn't listening because nobody did anything until the 9-11 attacks. Here is the amazing thing, not one person from the FBI, CIA or the Bush White House has been fired for their poor job performance leading up to 9-11, instead it is Washington business as usual, protect the top Washington heads and attack and malign the whistleblowers, in this case former counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke. Everyone affiliated with the Bush White House is dissing Clarke. Yea, it is Clarke's fault that Condoleezza Rice was too busy to read his reports. Yea, it is Clarke's fault that Rice pushed him to meet with underlings. Yea, it is Clarke's fault that Bush was and is obsessed with Iraq... Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist claims to be appalled for the "act of profiteering" because Clarke wrote a book on the Bush Administration's failings. Too bad Frist isn't as appalled at Dick Cheney for his "act of profiteering" from the first Gulf War, he made millions off of that war and as vice president still makes money from the company that now makes money from the Iraq occupation. Frist's partisanship when it comes to being appalled over "act of profiteering" is in itself appalling. Frist even called Clarke's apology to the 9-11 families "theatrical." The only theater going on is the Bush Administration pretending to be strong on fighting terrorism. Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." The Bush Administration and their Senate stooges are about to find out what President Lincoln meant. They are no longer fooling anybody, except themselves. The more television commercials I see touting George W. Bush as tough on terrorism, the less I believe it. Bush's campaign commercials are kind of like the commercials for the 4-hour erection medicine, 4 more for the same old prick... |
29-03-04, 10:17 AM | #20 |
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