| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| John Podhoretz nails Clarke but good! |
| 2004-03-23 |
| John Podhoretz on Clarke’s greatness! RICHARD Clarke is the greatest man who has ever strode this planet’s surface. I know this because I have just read his book, "Against All Enemies." Some might suggest that the book is a distorted, false, sour-grapes account from a demoted government official who wants to settle scores and destroy the Bush administration in which he served as a holdover staffer from the Clinton years. But that’s because they simply don’t comprehend the power and the glory that is Dick Clarke. He is the man who took charge of America on 9/11 by "putting together a secure teleconference to manage the crisis," he writes on page 2. A secure teleconference! Wow! If you knew anything about Washington, you would surely think that a staffer on the National Security Council - traditionally a role without a great deal of authority - wouldn’t be a major decision-maker during the day of and the days following the attack on this country. That’s because You Don’t Know Dick Clarke. Clarke says he all but ordered the president of the United States not to return to Washington on that day. ("Figure out where to move the president. He can’t come back here until we know what the s--t is happening.") By his own account, it was Clarke who gave the order to "authorize the Air Force to shoot down any aircraft . . . that looks like it is threatening to attack." You thought it was Dick Cheney who gave that order? You were wrong - at least if you believe Dick Clarke. Oh, and Clarke took command of the Air Force, too. ("Roger, find out where the fighter planes are. I want Combat Air Patrol over every major city in this country. Now.") Remember when Alexander Haig created a firestorm right after the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by claiming he was "in charge"? Well, when it comes to being "in charge," Haig had nothing on Dick Clarke, who was - so he tells us with excruciating generosity - a just and righteous ruler of America on that day. Some might suggest that since Clarke was the National Security Council staffer responsible for dealing with terrorism during the Clinton years, he might be a little shy about claiming that the Bush administration didn’t do enough to take out Osama bin Laden. After all, it was the Clinton administration that failed to react effectively to the four major terrorist acts planned or supported by al Qaeda during the 1990s. Neither Clarke nor the administration discerned al Qaeda’s hand in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, though the evidence of financial support is plain now. Clarke believed Iran was behind the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, though we now know it to have been the work of al Qaeda. And he told Bill Clinton that the pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan blown up after the embassy bombings in 1998 was an al Qaeda workshop, which it wasn’t. And the Clinton administration didn’t respond at all to the bombing of USS Cole in October 2000. This would seem to be the most glaring failure of all, since 17 American sailors died and more than 100 were wounded. Clarke explains this colossal failure by reporting that "time was running out on the Clinton administration. There was going to be one last major national-security initative and it was going to be a final try to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. I would like to have tried both, Camp David and blowing up the al Qaeda camps. Nonetheless, I understood." And if he understood, why shouldn’t we all? What Clarke reveals in "Against All Enemies" is that - not to put too fine a point on it - he is a self-regarding buffoon. But his solipsistic silliness won’t give pause to the Democrat-media desperation to rewrite recent history in an effort to delude voters that the 9/11 attacks were the fault of George W. Bush’s inattention. They were not Bush’s fault, and they were not caused by his inattention. Nor were they Clinton’s fault. They were the fault of Osama bin Laden, who attacked and killed 3,000 Americans and would happily have seen that number read 30,000 or 50,000. We need to remember this, and we are in danger of forgetting it in the raging partisan kerfuffle. In the months after 9/11, the Bush administration refused - absolutely refused - to try to blame the attacks on the Clinton administration’s failure of vision. The nation needed to be united in its determination and could not afford to surrender to finger-pointing. Well, guess what? The Clinton administration’s senior foreign-policy officials will be appearing this week before the 9/11 commission - to do to the Bush administration exactly what the Bush administration refused to do to them. "It is essential that we prevent further attacks, and that we protect the Constitution," Clarke writes, "against all enemies." It is clear from the context of this sentence that he includes George W. Bush among the enemies along with Osama bin Laden. You see! You people don’t understand the greatness of Clarke! Another Clintonite that had his 15 minutes of fame and then flamed out! |
| Posted by:Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) |
| #8 Opinionjournal.com's James Taranto uses kerfuffle all the time (so much so that some people have complained). Of course, since the word is Yiddish, it's just an implant into the English language by the Jooos. |
| Posted by: Tibor 2004-3-23 11:02:35 PM |
| #7 FrankG - Mebbe cingold would be interested in drafting that letter thingy for ya.... Gotta snip these kerfuffles in the bud, y'know! ;-) |
| Posted by: .com 2004-3-23 10:12:48 PM |
| #6 Clarke sounds a lot like Thurber's Walter Mitty. |
| Posted by: GK 2004-3-23 10:00:56 PM |
| #5 Pod has my unlicensed usage rights (LOL) as does anyone on the right side of the argument. You DU bastards, better watch for a letter from my lawyer ;-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-3-23 9:23:30 PM |
| #4 Slightly off-topic, but this is just a blatant example of CNN's liberal bias: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/23/911.commission.strikes.ap/index.html The story begins: "The Clinton and Bush administrations secretly considered but ultimately rejected a range of military actions against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network prior to September 11, 2001." What follows are SIX examples from the Clinton Administration and NONE from the Bush Administration. No liberal media bias here. The military under Bush may have rejected plans to attack al Qaeda pre-9/11, but CNN provides no such examples. |
| Posted by: Tibor 2004-3-23 9:18:08 PM |
| #3 Unfortunately he may have become a born again Clintonite but he started before Clinton took office. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-3-23 9:16:54 PM |
| #2 LOL! Podhoretz Rocks! FrankG - you should sue him, however, he stole your word: "in the raging partisan kerfuffle" That is definitely your word, IIRC. Get him! |
| Posted by: .com 2004-3-23 8:59:40 PM |
| #1 [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted] |
| Posted by: Removed 2004-3-23 8:46:57 PM |