Written by: Beck

Richard Clarke is being defensive. For those not up to speed on Clark(e)s Not Named Wesley, Richard Clarke was Clinton's anti-terrorism expert (he was a thirty year White House veteran, and worked for a while under the Bush administration, before being forced out), and having remained relatively silent in the two years since September 11, is now doing the talk-show circuit. Why? Well because he has a new book out of course!

The man's tenure in the Clinton White House was a failure. He spent his time focusing loudly on cyber-terrorism. His one great accomplishment was making sure the US government didn't completely implode from the Y2K bug. Judging from the fact that no ICBMs up and decided to launch themselves at midnight on December 31, 1999, I assume he was successful. In everything else, the Clinton administration soundly failed. Between 1992 and 2000, the United States sustained a bomb attack on the world trade tower, a bomb attack against a naval destroyer, and two bomb attacks against embassies of ours in Africa. Our retaliation involved throwing a few Arabs in jail, blowing up a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, and lobbing a cruise missile into Afghanistan. We're not entirely sure about the effect of the cruise missile, but we're pretty sure it scared the bajeezus out of some goats.

And so, Clarke has gone on the offensive, declaring in essence that Bush's failure to completely dismantle and destroy Al Qaeda in the 9 months he was in office prior to the WTT and Pentagon attacks was 100% the fault of the Bush administration and 0% the fault of the god-like, infallible, and much more fashionable Clinton administration. Surely the timing of this book release--in an election year--is pure coincidence! I would hate to ascribe sinister motives to poor Mr. Clarke.

Anyway, the White House has launched a full court press to make this guy look like the hammer-pickle he is. (If you want to know what a hammer-pickle is, ask Speculator, I'm not really sure myself). Now he's being very defensive, and looking rather silly in the process. The problem is that it doesn't even matter if the White House comes out fully vindicated and everyone pretty much concludes that Clarke needs to get back to things he's good at like huffing paint fumes, damage has still been done to the credibility of the White House. It's just another salvo in what I'm quite certain is going to be the dirtiest campaigning by the Democrats in my lifetime. Money quote for you:

Rice has characterized as "ridiculous" Clarke's statement in his book that she seemed unaware of al Qaeda until he told her about it.

Update: It would seem Clarke is launching a job at a Homeland Security consulting firm with a former Clinton White House employee. To say that this guy's motives in writing this book and publishing it now are suspect would be to say that the sky has a "bluish tendency."

Update:William F. Buckley rips in to Clarke over on National Review Online.

Update:Another article about the Richard Clarke mess. Nothing especially new, except for these wonderful quotes from two Democratic senators, including Joe Lieberman:

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said Sunday he doesn't believe Clarke's charge that the Bush administration -- which defeated him and former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election -- was focused more on Iraq than al-Qaida during the days after the terror attacks.

"I see no basis for it," Lieberman said on Fox News Sunday. "I think we've got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric."

And Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that while he has been critical of Bush policies on Iraq, "I think it's unfair to blame the president for the spread of terror and the diffuseness of it. Even if he had followed the advice of me and many other people, I still think the same thing would have happened."