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Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clark proved himself an unblinking warrior against the Bush attack dogs today as the White House attempted to bring him down but their weapons were apparently powerless against him. First, they tried to use a background briefing he gave against him. In todays press briefing , White House press secretary Scott McClellan tried repeatedly to paint Clarkes August 2002 background briefing to reporters as his own words instead of the words of a man who was special assistant to the president. Given the fact that youre pointing to this transcript, reading through it, saying its a question of his credibility MR. So given that, given the fact that he definitely had this quoted as toeing the administrations line before reporters, why do you think he is saying what hes saying? McCLELLAN : Well, like I said, this goes to his credibility, and I think that those are questions that Mr. Clarke who went out and made assertions that this administration was doing nothing prior to 9/11, that we were not taking the threat from al Qaeda seriously, that there was a delay, that we moved slowly. But Dick Clarke, in his words acknowledges, one, that the administration took al Qaeda very seriously and began a process to address the threat very early on;
You cannot square Dick Clarkes new assertions with his past words. I would like to just point to a couple of other parts of this transcript from Mr. Question: What is your response to the suggestion in the August 12th well, in the Time Magazine article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the general animus against the foreign policy? Clark: I think if if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with the terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesnt sound like animus against the previous team to me, Mr. Now, two other parts I want to refer to, as well: Question by a reporter: Were all of those issues part of an alleged plan that was late December, and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to Mr. What there was, was these two things one a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat;
Clarke towards the end of the interview went on to say: You know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the roll-back strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD meaning the National Security Policy Directive from one of roll-back to one of elimination. Clarke in his own words , and his own words contradict what he now asserts. Here McClellan disputes that the White House even attempts to coordinate its daily communications strategy. We know every day all of you start from the beginning of the day to disseminate well, to figure out what youre going to say to the media, how youre going to present your spin, I guess, you would say in some ways. McCLELLAN : I dont know if thats I dont know if thats quite an accurate description of the way we start our day or what we do. Q Well, I mean when you start your day, you guys are talking about what you want to put out there and how youre going to put it out there, and what you should not say. And was he, indeed, following the line that you were given here that day? Q But, Scott, in this administration when reporters go and ask you, other persons around here, we get the same words the same words come out. McCLELLAN : Well, I think thats a sign that were following the Presidents direction and his policies. Clarke, on his own, making these comments back in the spring of 2002. So, according to McClellan, there are no talking points and Clarke is a rogue special assistant to the president who talks off the reservation in his own words, remember but whos own words back up the presidents policies. Then, during his testimony today before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States , Commission member Gov.
Clarke responded with, I was asked by several people in senior levels of the Bush White house to do a press backgrounder to try to explain that set of facts that minimized criticism of that administration. I was special assistant to the president, and I made the case I was asked to make. Thompson responded with incredulity that such things ever happen, asking, Are you saying to me you were asked to make an untrue case to the press and the public and you went ahead and did it? I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done and to minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done. And as a special assistant to the president, one is frequently asked to do that kind of thing. So far, the White Houses only line of defense against Clarke is that hes a liar and a boob and both out-of-the-loop and responsible for everything that went wrong, as Josh Marshall neatly summarizes. And those are pretty weak considering hes got 30 years of service under his belt, he was the loop and his book shows how the Clinton White House did a lot of things right such as preventing al Qaeda from taking over Bosnia in the mid 1990s.
According to McClellan, it was Fox News who yesterday came to us and said they had a tape of this conversation with Mr. If thats true, then a news organization that was included in a briefing with the agreement that it was on background that is, with no quotes and the briefer not be identified approached a sources former employer and offered to give up apparently conflicting words that the employer could use against the source. Its not particularly contradictory, frankly, and can easily be read as how Clarke characterized it. When I was at Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Journalism , we were taught to go to jail before you give up your sources. And you sure as hell dont approach someone youre supposed to be covering and offer to help them out against someone. Anyone who still thinks Fox is fair and balanced should really have their head examined. If you like it because its a right-wing attack network, more power to you. But if you really think its working for anything but Bushs re-election, you really need to get out more. But all this criticism is really secondary because Clarke reserves he real outrage for Iraq. When the subject of the war there came up, Clarke said to the Commission, simply and devastatingly, By invading of Iraq, the President of United of the States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism. For a long several seconds, there was nothing in the room but a deadly silence. Posted by Christopher at March 24, 2004 07:55 PM Trackback Please consider donating to support this site and to send me back to Iraq . Email this entry to: Your email address: Message optional: Comments Fox oughta be officially kicked outta the field of actual journalism and into the Yellow Journalists Hall of Shame. Anyone who believes theyre getting news or reporting out of that Pandoras Box of Pinheads is out of the loop. Makes you wonder what Foxs exit strategy is going to be in the event the Shrubbery dont walk off with the White House again in the fall. Posted by: jan on March 24, 2004 08:26 PM Thats the beauty of the FNN or any right wing attack network, they dont HAVE to follow the rules or even care about who they trounce on, they are supported internally. I recently read Blinded By The Right by David Brock and when you read that and compare to what is going on today you can see many many parallels.
And just how frustrated is the working press with the Chatty-Cathy-Doll behavior of the Bush spokespeople? Jon Stewart did a great job editting together identical Rice/McClellan statements on Monday, btw. Posted by: Louise on March 25, 2004 09:41 AM Chris: Thanks ever so much for that review and excerpts. I think you put it exceedingly aptly when you made the comment that Clarke WAS ...
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