Richard Clarke has sparked a furious debate. Many have remarked that Kerry is glad to sit it out. Clarke is not sitting it out but he could. The furious debate is between various Bush administration officials presenting wildly contradictory denials Clarke’s claims and wildly contradictory attacks on Clarke. I think the best battles are between one guy and himself.

I nominate this Wilkinson guy for most incompetent spinmeister (although Hadley and >Cheney give him runs for his money). I wonder if he is going to be spending more time with his family ?

From http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_03_21.php#002745

Wilkinson vs Wilkinson (look mom no ellipses)

“And I think your viewers tonight would be a little alarmed if the president didn't ask about any connection from anybody on any part of the globe, frankly.
The president wanted to know who did it and who was responsible.

Dick Clarke, on another interview he gave to PBS "Frontline," said that, right after 9/11, all his options were open. He wasn't sure who did it. So, again, we see Mr. Clarke on three sides of a two-sided issue. What the American people need to know is that their government is working diligently to go after al Qaeda”

Yes that’s a continuous quote from one human being. If Bush considers all possibilities it is good, and if Clarke considers all possibilities it is bad.

Now, for what it’s worth (nothing) I personally think that neither Bush nor Clarke open mindedly considered all possibilities, bush was really only interested in Iraq and Clarke was immediately sure Al Qaeda was guilty.

Notice that if one takes Wilkinson literally one must conclude that he believes that Clarke should have known who did it before looking at the evidence. Hard to reconcile with any meaning of the word intelligence.

I think Wilkinson trying to mislead the audience into thinking that, when Clarke spoke on PBS, he was still not sure who did it. Hard to reconcile with the quote from Clarke on PBS “Frankly, there was absolutely not a shred of evidence that it was anybody else. The evidence that it was Al Qaeda began just to be massive within days after the attack.”

Still Colin Powell manages an almost more impressive oxymoron

Powell vs Powell
From CNN
Look mom no ellipses no period no comma !
"We wanted to move beyond the roll-back policy of containment”

Now back in the good old cold war there was a debate between the super hawks who wanted “roll back” and the doves and just hawks who wanted containment. “the roll-back policy of containment is an oxymoron.

This is a substantive issue because Powell is attempting to conflate pre December 2000 Clinton administration policies “criminal prosecution and limited retaliation for specific terrorist attacks.”(containment) with the roll back plan to destroy Al Qaeda which was developed in the last months of the Clinton administration, presented to the Bush administration in January 2001 and discussed until September 2001 and then implemented after 9/11 see Time.


After that, mere contradictions between actually different people are dull but.

McClellan & Hadley Vs Hadley & Bartlett
On was Bush in the situation room on September 12 2001.

From Sadly no’s rush transcript of 60 minutes.

“HADLEY: We can not find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the President ever occurred.

STAHL: Now can I interrupt you for one second. We have done our own work on that ourselves and we have two sources who tell us independently of Dick Clarke that there was this encounter. One of them was an actual witness.

HADLEY: Look, the -- I -- I stand on what I said. But the point I think we're missing in this is of course the President wanted to know if there was any evidence linking Iraq to 9/11.”

Amazingly McClellan tried the same deception a day after Hadley got nailed on national TV.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let's just step backwards -- regardless, regardless, put that aside. There's no record of the President being in the Situation Room on that day that it was alleged to have happened, on the day of September the 12th. When the President is in the Situation Room, we keep track of that.

Bartlett vehemently disagrees.


White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer -- text and audio. "I'm not here to dispute that there wasn't a conversation and the fact that President Bush didn't ask questions about Iraq, I'm sure he did and I'm glad he did,


Cheney Vs Wilkinson
Was Clarke out of the loop or was Clarke the loop ?

Cheney on Rush L via CNN
"Well, he wasn't in the loop frankly on a lot of this stuff," sniffed Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh's radio show Monday.

(you can tell something is happening politically when CNN.com uses the sneer word “sniffed” when quoting Cheney)

Jim Wilkinson, an NSC spokesman, on Paula Zahn Monday night
l
"I would say, I would remind you that Dick Clarke was in charge of counterterrorism policy when the African embassies were bombed. Dick Clarke was in charge of counterterrorism policy when the USS Cole was bombed. Dick Clarke was in charge of counterterrorism policy in the time preceding 9/11 when the threat was growing."

Wolfowitz vs his spokesman

As soon as the transcripts of today's testimony appear, watch for Tim Roemer's exchange with Paul Wolfowitz over Richard Clarke's claims. Wolfowitz would not clearly address the validity of claims which his spokesman yesterday was bold enough to call a 'fabrication'.

“A spokesman for Wolfowitz describes Clarke's account as a "fabrication." Wolfowitz always regarded Al Qaeda as "a major threat," says this official.”


via
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_03_21.php#002744


Rice Vs Wilkinson vs anon
Aka goldilocks and the three bears.

Wilkinson

“I want to make a very point here, that all of his ideas he presented were not a strategy. This is a president who wanted a comprehensive strategy to go after al Qaeda where it lives, where it hides, where it plots, where it raises money.”

(note Wilkinson gives a good summary of Clarke’s “non” strategy under the heading of what the president allegedly wanted). Clarke’s ideas were not comprehensive enough. The ideas formed just part of a complete strategy.

Too narrow.

Rice
From
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice on ABC -- partial text. "This was in fact Dick Clarke's area of responsibility and when I asked him shortly after coming to the White House to give us a strategy for dealing with al Qaeda, because he made a very persuasive brief being the dangers of al Qaeda, what I got was a laundry list of ideas, many of which had been rejected in the Clinton administration in 1998."

A “laundry list”, that is, unfocused. It was necessary to decide which of the many ideas to focus on to make a strategy.

Too broad

Anon quoted in Time via Josh Marshall

“In the words of a senior Bush Administration official, the proposals amounted to "everything we've done since 9/11."”

Just right.