30-03-2004, 06:33
9/11
Foaming at the Mouth
Conservatives are continuing their assault on former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, a man who President Bush personally praised upon his retirement. The right-wing attack machine is now resorting to unsubstantiated claims and even racially charged rhetoric to try to change the subject. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) demanded that Clarke's 2002 private testimony to the congressional 9/11 commission be declassified claiming that Clarke "has told two entirely different stories." Frist specifically recounted details of what he said was Clarke's closed-door testimony. But as questions were raised about the legality of Frist's disclosure of still-classified testimony, Frist quickly "retreated" from his claims, admitting "that he personally had no knowledge that there were any discrepancies between" Clarke's 2002 testimony and his testimony last week. On the talk shows, Ann Coulter disparaged Clarke, saying he was just "upset a black woman took his job" while Robert Novak asked a guest "Do you believe Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman, Condoleezza Rice?" But in all of the huffing and puffing, not one Bush official or right-wing pundit has addressed the fundamental question: why was the Bush Administration asleep at the wheel before 9/11?
POWELL ASKED QUESTION BY AMERICAN PROGRESS; HAS NO ANSWER: Appearing on CBS Face the Nation, anchor Bob Schieffer told Secretary of State Colin Powell, "The Center for American Progress has posed this question: If, as the administration claims, the White House did make terrorism a priority, why did Vice President Cheney wait five months to establish a terrorism task force which then never met?" Powell responded by claiming other meetings had taken place, but according to the official transcript, said "With respect to the task force, I--I--I can't answer the specific question. I'm not familiar with the--with the document." See a video of the interchange.
SELECTIVELY DEFINING "THE PUBLIC INTEREST": White House press secretary Scott McClellan defended releasing an off-the-record background briefing Clarke gave in 2002, saying "It's important for the American people to know the facts" and that the release "was very much in the public interest" (For his part, Clarke is welcoming the declassification of all of the documents). However, the same standard is not being applied to Condi Rice, who refuses to testify publicly before the 9/11 commission, and who even refuses to go under oath or allow commissioners to transcribe her private testimony. Similarly, the White House "public interest" argument is also being ignored as the Administration refuses the 9/11 commission's request to make public some of the President's Daily Intelligence briefings. ATTACKING CLARKE FOR APOLOGIZING: Instead of demanding the White House live up to its "personal responsibility" mantra and publicly offer contrition, conservatives are attacking Richard Clarke for his apology to 9/11 families. Frist said Clarke's apology "was not his right, his privilege or his responsibility." A White House official said Clarke's apology was "bull___." Condoleezza Rice categorically refused to take any responsibility at all on 60 Minutes, despite being the top national security official at a time of one of the worst national security failure in American history. Clarke defended himself, saying "I have felt an enormous sense of guilt since September 11th...There are 3,000 families around the world who lost loved ones, and I'm sorry if Senator Frist thinks I don't have a right to apologize, but I do." Newsweek reports that "for many families of 9/11 victims, Clarke's apology was important" and evoked "elation" that at least one Bush official would admit some culpability. He was publicly embraced by many of those families at the hearings last week after his apology.
BILL FRIST, HYPOCRITE: Frist further disparaged Clarke by saying that "I am troubled that someone would sell a book, trading on their service as a government insider with access to our nation's most valuable intelligence, in order to profit from the suffering that this nation endured." Of course, it was Frist who capitalized on the traumatizing anthrax attacks of 2002: instead of waiting until the situation was brought under control, he actually published a new book on bioterrorism and aggressively promoted it while the crisis was still unfolding. For his part, Clarke said he wrote the book (which was cleared for publication by the White House) because "I had to tell the families of the victims who have been asking me, 'What went wrong?'" and wanted to offer suggestions about how we structure "the government so that we can avoid this kind of thing in the future." He also said he plans to make "substantial donations from the profits of this book" to 9/11 families.
RICE'S CLAIMS ABOUT AFGHANISTAN IN QUESTION: Rice last night claimed that "The president focused our energies and our attention" on Afghanistan after 9/11 – but even that claim was refuted by a new USA Today story which notes that as early as 2002, special forces were "pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for Iraq" while the White House "took CIA specialists away from the Afghanistan effort" for Iraq. Now, two years later, the U.S. is being forced to send in reinforcements, as the United Nations warns that Afghanistan "is in danger of reverting to a terrorist breeding ground." For more on Rice's interview last night, see this American Progress backgrounder.
Foaming at the Mouth
Conservatives are continuing their assault on former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, a man who President Bush personally praised upon his retirement. The right-wing attack machine is now resorting to unsubstantiated claims and even racially charged rhetoric to try to change the subject. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) demanded that Clarke's 2002 private testimony to the congressional 9/11 commission be declassified claiming that Clarke "has told two entirely different stories." Frist specifically recounted details of what he said was Clarke's closed-door testimony. But as questions were raised about the legality of Frist's disclosure of still-classified testimony, Frist quickly "retreated" from his claims, admitting "that he personally had no knowledge that there were any discrepancies between" Clarke's 2002 testimony and his testimony last week. On the talk shows, Ann Coulter disparaged Clarke, saying he was just "upset a black woman took his job" while Robert Novak asked a guest "Do you believe Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman, Condoleezza Rice?" But in all of the huffing and puffing, not one Bush official or right-wing pundit has addressed the fundamental question: why was the Bush Administration asleep at the wheel before 9/11?
POWELL ASKED QUESTION BY AMERICAN PROGRESS; HAS NO ANSWER: Appearing on CBS Face the Nation, anchor Bob Schieffer told Secretary of State Colin Powell, "The Center for American Progress has posed this question: If, as the administration claims, the White House did make terrorism a priority, why did Vice President Cheney wait five months to establish a terrorism task force which then never met?" Powell responded by claiming other meetings had taken place, but according to the official transcript, said "With respect to the task force, I--I--I can't answer the specific question. I'm not familiar with the--with the document." See a video of the interchange.
SELECTIVELY DEFINING "THE PUBLIC INTEREST": White House press secretary Scott McClellan defended releasing an off-the-record background briefing Clarke gave in 2002, saying "It's important for the American people to know the facts" and that the release "was very much in the public interest" (For his part, Clarke is welcoming the declassification of all of the documents). However, the same standard is not being applied to Condi Rice, who refuses to testify publicly before the 9/11 commission, and who even refuses to go under oath or allow commissioners to transcribe her private testimony. Similarly, the White House "public interest" argument is also being ignored as the Administration refuses the 9/11 commission's request to make public some of the President's Daily Intelligence briefings. ATTACKING CLARKE FOR APOLOGIZING: Instead of demanding the White House live up to its "personal responsibility" mantra and publicly offer contrition, conservatives are attacking Richard Clarke for his apology to 9/11 families. Frist said Clarke's apology "was not his right, his privilege or his responsibility." A White House official said Clarke's apology was "bull___." Condoleezza Rice categorically refused to take any responsibility at all on 60 Minutes, despite being the top national security official at a time of one of the worst national security failure in American history. Clarke defended himself, saying "I have felt an enormous sense of guilt since September 11th...There are 3,000 families around the world who lost loved ones, and I'm sorry if Senator Frist thinks I don't have a right to apologize, but I do." Newsweek reports that "for many families of 9/11 victims, Clarke's apology was important" and evoked "elation" that at least one Bush official would admit some culpability. He was publicly embraced by many of those families at the hearings last week after his apology.
BILL FRIST, HYPOCRITE: Frist further disparaged Clarke by saying that "I am troubled that someone would sell a book, trading on their service as a government insider with access to our nation's most valuable intelligence, in order to profit from the suffering that this nation endured." Of course, it was Frist who capitalized on the traumatizing anthrax attacks of 2002: instead of waiting until the situation was brought under control, he actually published a new book on bioterrorism and aggressively promoted it while the crisis was still unfolding. For his part, Clarke said he wrote the book (which was cleared for publication by the White House) because "I had to tell the families of the victims who have been asking me, 'What went wrong?'" and wanted to offer suggestions about how we structure "the government so that we can avoid this kind of thing in the future." He also said he plans to make "substantial donations from the profits of this book" to 9/11 families.
RICE'S CLAIMS ABOUT AFGHANISTAN IN QUESTION: Rice last night claimed that "The president focused our energies and our attention" on Afghanistan after 9/11 – but even that claim was refuted by a new USA Today story which notes that as early as 2002, special forces were "pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for Iraq" while the White House "took CIA specialists away from the Afghanistan effort" for Iraq. Now, two years later, the U.S. is being forced to send in reinforcements, as the United Nations warns that Afghanistan "is in danger of reverting to a terrorist breeding ground." For more on Rice's interview last night, see this American Progress backgrounder.