<font color=blue>“Mugged”<font color=black>
A 9/11 commissioner unloads on Richard Clarke and his <font color=blue>“jihad against Bush.”<font color=black>
Rich Lowry
July 22, 2004, 5:12 p.m.
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It is a day of 9/11 Commission unanimity, but one commissioner, looking back at its public work, is remembering the partisan past. <font color=blue>"We were mugged by Viacom,"<font color=black> Republican commissioner John Lehman says, referring to the owner of the publisher of Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies, and the owner of CBS, which broadcast a long, loving segment devoted to Clarke just prior to the release of his book.
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"I think we were mugged by Viacom,"<font color=black> Lehman told NRO in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon. <font color=blue>"Because they changed the release date of the book and geared up 60 Minutes to launch his book to time them with his testimony and they edited his book to take out all of the criticisms of Clinton from his [original private] testimony. Because they wanted to make it a jihad against Bush."<font color=black>
Lehman says that Clarke's original testimony included <font color=red>
"a searing indictment of some Clinton officials and
Clinton policies."<font color=black> That was the Clarke, evenhanded in his
criticisms of both the Bush and Clinton administrations,
who Lehman and other Republican commissioners expected to
show up at the public hearings. It was a surprise <font color=red>"that he
would come out against Bush that way."<font color=black> Republicans were
taken aback: <font color=red>"It caught us flat-footed, but not the
Democrats."<font color=black>
Clarke's performance poisoned the public hearings, leading to weeks of a partisan slugfest. Lehman says Republican commissioners felt they had to fight back, adding to the partisan atmosphere. <font color=red>"What triggered it was Dick Clarke,"<font color=black> says Lehman. <font color=red>"We couldn't sit back and let him get away with what he wanted to get away with."<font color=black> He adds, <font color=red>"We were hijacked by a combination of Viacom and the Kerry campaign in the handling of Clarke's testimony."<font color=black>
But Lehman is proud of the unanimous final report released today. It reflects the more sober, behind-the-scenes work of the commission: <font color=red>"By and large it was nothing like you saw in those public hearings."<font color=black> Lehman calls the final report <font color=blue>"very feisty,"<font color=black> with significant forward-looking recommendations.
He rejects the notion that the report didn't devote sufficient attention to the so-called <font color=blue>"wall,"<font color=black> the legal barrier to cooperation between prosecutors and counter-terrorism officials. <font color=blue>"Whether there is a wall or not a wall, it's not a huge difference,"<font color=black> he says. Lehman maintains that the main problem is that law enforcement will always act like law enforcement, concerned primarily with making criminal cases.
Lehman, a conservative stalwart and former secretary of the Navy, hopes the commission's unanimous report can be a model for a way out of the current poisonous partisan morass. Don't bet on it. Richard Clarke and all his fans are still out there.
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