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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SalemsHex who wrote (558641)	4/1/2004 12:17:52 AM
From: Johannes Pilch	Respond to of 769667

Well that is certainly no proof of anything, except of what Powell has already claimed, that most of the Bush administration thought the terrorist threat lay outside of the country. Big deal. Clarke has lied to sell his book. Find a leftist, you've found a liar.

To: SalemsHex who wrote (558641)	4/1/2004 4:31:14 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769667

big whoop. much ado about nothing ...just a mad bureaucrat(Clarke) that never had a real job, trying to sack up some money for retirement.

To: SalemsHex who wrote (558641)	4/1/2004 6:03:28 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769667

CLARKE'S TERROR CONTENTIONS CLOSE TO ABSURD Richard Clarke's new book, as related in his interview on 60 Minutes, accuses the Bush Administration of being so inept that anyone who isn't legally blind can see it is politically motivated. In a book released suspiciously close to an election cycle, the former counterterrorism official, a holdover from the Clinton Administration, comes out swinging at the President and his inner circle while going very light on his former boss, Bill Clinton. Clarke does this even though he previously acknowledged that Bill Clinton was responsible for a plethora of oversights regarding al Qaida including botching several opportunities to have Osama bin Laden's head on a plate. Not surprisingly, then, this latest hatchet job on the Bush administration can only be viewed as another disingenuous and deceitful hatchet job by the DNC, Terry McAuliffe, and the liberally biased elite media -- a tactic used by all of them many times in the past. In excerpts from his book (and during an interview with Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes), Clarke claims everything that came out of the Bush White House after September 11th was focused on Iraq. What a strange contention. Clarke speaks as if no one remembers the events of that day. I am here to say he is sadly mistaken. I remember quite clearly watching the news that day. How could it be avoided? I remember being glued to the news stations feeding on every bit of information the media had to offer. I recall learning bit-by-media-fed-bit that our government targeted Osama bin Laden and al Qaida as the ones responsible for the attacks and that they even approached the Afghani government quite quickly about bin Laden's whereabouts. I remember reports of it being conveyed beyond a shadow of a doubt to the Afghani government the severity of the repercussions should they be harboring bin Laden and his inner circle. And I remember the Taliban spokesman denying any knowledge of al Qaida or Osama bin Laden, even as al Qaida issued statements of responsibility. I remember President Bush addressing the nation for the second time that fateful day to explain who did this. At no time did I ever hear the words "Iraq" or "Saddam Hussein" -- except from the media. If the Bush Administration truly wanted to lay blame at the feet of Saddam Hussein for September 11th, why would they have even mentioned bin Laden, al Qaida, the Taliban or Afghanistan? Conversely, if they wanted to lay the blame at the feet of Saddam Hussein why wouldn't they have centered the President's speech to the American public that day on Hussein's government and Iraq? It doesn't add up. Clarke also accuses National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, on 9/11, of being ignorant to the fact al Qaida actually existed. This comes as quite a surprise seeing as she had mentioned the terrorist organization in lectures on terrorism prior to her White House service. Enough said about that, I guess. Clarke also accuses Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of saying, on September 12th, that there were no good targets in Afghanistan and that there were better ones in Iraq. Anyone who understands the way the Pentagon works at Rumsfeld's level can see through this statement. When a Secretary of Defense gets orders to achieve a battle plan, he calls upon his Joint Chief's of Staff who in turn call upon the best within their respective branches of the armed forces to construct several battle scenarios. With all the intelligence the Pentagon had from the decade-plus war between the Afghan Rebels and the former Soviet Union, and even from providing limited and covert support to the Taliban regime in their fight against our Cold War foe, it would be inconceivable that we wouldn't know almost every site worth hitting in Afghanistan. As Operation Enduring Freedom proved, there were plenty of targets in Afghanistan, so Clarke's assertions are at the least puzzling and at best fraudulently spun. This book looks to be something of a "C.Y.A." attempt, in light of the fact Mr. Clarke was the counterterrorism expert in the Clinton White House. During the eight years he spent in that position, we saw the first World Trade Center bombings, the bombing of US embassies around the world, the bombing of the USS Cole, the proliferation of al Qaida throughout the Muslim world and the repeated failure to capture Osama bin Laden, even though foreign countries were offering him up on a sliver platter. If I were Richard Clarke, and if I had presided over such incredible failures in counterterrorism, I too would be looking for a scapegoat. The assertions made in Richard Clarke's book, and especially the timing of it's release, are so suspect and transparent in their motivation, it is laughable. The mainstream media has gotten so used to stuffing inane garbage and political sensationalism down our throats, it seems they have missed the moment many of us got bored with the headlines in the checkout lines at the supermarkets and opted for truth in news. But while Clarke's assertions may be laughable, what is not laughable -- and in fact what is quite sad and infuriating -- is that the mainstream media would give so much face time to someone so politically jaded. What is even more sad and more infuriating is that there are those out there who will choose to believe this because of their searing hatred of President Bush; one trick political ponies who hate because they don't have the courage to embrace what needs to be done to make our world safer. The Bush-haters and the liberal-left in this country, and around the world, would be making a huge mistake by embracing the bitterness of Richard Clarke. At best his accusations are nothing more than opinionated rage from someone who not only is an ardent John Kerry supporter and outspoken opponent of the Iraqi military action, but someone who is trying to sell a book during a small window of opportunity in time. Alleged facts that are based on opportunism are seldom ever based in reality. It is time for the liberal-left media to stop glorifying those who spew hatred toward the President. They are starting to look more foolish than ever. iconoclast.ca

To: SalemsHex who wrote (558641)	4/1/2004 7:02:56 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769667

Clarke Boycotting Fox Former Clinton terrorism czar Richard Clarke is boycotting the Fox News Channel in apparent retaliation for the network's decision last week to release an August 2002 background briefing in which he praised President Bush's conduct of the war on terror. "Now here's something you might not know," Fox host Bill O'Reilly told his "O'Reilly Factor" audience Tuesday night. "Richard Clarke's publisher, Simon & Schuster, has refused to put him on the Fox News Channel at all." O'Reilly noted that the move was "almost unheard of in the publishing industry. ... Fox News Channel sells books and everybody in the publishing worlds knows it." "You can understand why he wouldn't come on 'The Factor' because we'd make him sweat, but all the other programs on this network? There's something wrong with that strategy," he added. Clarke's "soft interview only" strategy seemed to be in full force even in usually tough venues like "Meet the Press," where moderator Tim Russert abandoned his usual prosecutorial style to hand up the Bush critic mostly softballs on Sunday. Wednesday night the media fawning was even more pronounced, when MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews conducted what Matthews' friend Don Imus described this morning as "an accommodating interview." "He wasn't being challenged by Mr. Matthews at all," Imus complained. "That's unusual. I fully expected them to leave the set and travel to San Francisco - or somewhere." newsmax.com