In the yahoo press release for this story, there was this paragraph:

As soon as Clarke's charges began appearing in print, Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' presumptive nominee, put them on his campaign Web site. But for Kerry and the Democrats, the catch is that President Bill Clinton did no better to tame the terrorist threat during his last years in office. As Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll recently showed in his new book "Ghost Wars," those in the national-security bureaucracy under Clinton spent more time wringing their hands and squabbling with each other than going after Osama bin Laden.

Do you suspect that this means Newsweek believes that Clinton (or Gore) would have suggested that bombing Iraq was the right way to handle 9-11? What dorks they are to put this pap in their article.

Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes this evening reported that CBS has independent confirmation of the post 9/11 conversation that Clarke says he had with Bush.

When she confronted Bushie flunky Stephen Hadley with this information Hadley started blubbering in the same manner as Rumsfeld did on Face the Nation last week when confronted with his own words on the "imminence" of the Iraqi threat.

Whoops--just want to make clear that the conversation between Clarke and Bush I was referring to was the one the Bushies are saying W can't remember.

I can't speak for White House spin's ability -- or rather, I will not underestimate it.

But, Isikoff alone will not be enough to refute that 60 Minutes segment. That was a jaw-dropping piece.

As a close follower of news and politics, I was, like I imagine everyone else here was, more or less aware of the story. But, to see it stated so bluntly, so seriously, so apparently irrefutably by Clarke, it was like watching a terrible accident, and that accident was clearly caused by dereliction and ideological blindness of this awful man, George W. Bush.

That was a momentous news segment. I'm not ready to write off it's impact, yet, particularly with Clarke's upcoming 9-11 commission testimony.

I will be incredibly surprised if this has no effect at all on the body politic.

And just think, it got about 25 lead-ins from the UAB upset of Kentucky. Hopefully somebody out there saw it.

And UAB pulled off an underdog win against the, um, incumbent #1.

It was quite a game.

It was quite an interview.

What I'd like to see the 9/11 commission do is bring in John Ashcroft and ask him under oath why he stopped flying commercial in July.

Let me get the rules straight -

-If a "retired" and disgruntled employee speaks out against Bush, it's the honest truth and a frightening indictment.

-If other employees of that administration speak in favour of Bush, it's a spin job and not worthy of note.

Got to remember that. Now if only some people here would cite facts from that Dick Clarke interview they paid so much attention to, we'd have something reasonable to discuss. Anyone?

Are you familiar with the term "ad hominem circumstantial fallacy"? It refers to an attempt to discredit a message simply by accusing the messenger of being fatally biased by his or her position. It seems to me that in accusing the community of this blog of committing an AHCF (namely, believing all dissent from the Bush administration and disbelieving all its apologists), you're making the opposite one. The only way out of this spiral of mutual accusation is to focus on the facts, so I'm glad that you really want to hear them.

To begin with, Bush downgraded Clarke's "counterterrorism czar" position from a cabinet position to a staff position. This is not in dispute. It's impossible to argue about the disregard for the job that that shows. (If Bush had merely disliked Clarke, he could have fired him and put someone else in the cabinet position.)

I'll let other people continue with the facts, since I have to run.

Dr. Cruel:

When you can show me a Bush official who can categorically rebut Clarke's allegations WITH FACTS themselves, instead of smearing him for speaking out, come back.