Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pogeu Mahone who wrote (281763)	3/30/2004 8:50:30 AM
From: redfish	Respond to of 436258

Having spent some time working for Club Fed, I think that other than the political side of this, a major factor is the inherent tension between political appointees and career civil servants. You have career guys who have spent 25 years working to become authorities in their area. Then a new administration comes in and he finds himself working under a snot-nosed kid who has little experience in the area. It is a real problem in our government and the major reason why despite countless reorganizations, our agencies don't function near as well as they could. I think Clarke felt all along that he wasn't being given his props by Wolfowitz, Rice & Company.

To: Pogeu Mahone who wrote (281763)	4/8/2004 9:39:31 PM
From: Dan B.	Respond to of 436258

I definitely see bias in that story. Re: "But the key allegation in the book - that the Bush team was obsessed with Iraq even when faced with overwhelming evidence that it was Al Qaeda that was attacking the United States - can't be dismissed by assertions that he was out of the loop.....Coll notes, as does Clarke, that the Bush team didn't hold its first cabinet-level meeting on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan until Sept. 4, one week before the twin towers fell." But we can dismiss his "key allegation if we remember that Bush in fact first focused on Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, not Iraq. That cabinet level meeting of Sept. 4th apparantly was the culmination of planning stronger efforts against Al Qaeds which had been going on nearly since Bush first took office 8-9 months before, which in fact incorporated Clarke's early advice. Rather thin criticism, IMO. Dan B.