Richard Clark

[saboudian]

This guy has been on the news all week. Was the former counter terrorism cheif and wrote a book putting the bush administration in a very unflattering light. Saw his tesimonial to the 9/11 commission and it appears he still has all of his integrity, and was very impressed by him, i think he will be on larry king tonite.

Also interesting watching the daily show and how they juxtaposed bush's "attack dogs" as clark predicted would be their response.

Just wanted to what your guys thoughts on this were, because if it comes out that Bush was very weak on terrorism (which it seems to listening to 9/11 panel), this election is over.

[jeffylyte]

the interesting thing is he first was put in the post by reagan and also served in bush 1 and clinton as well. He is also a registered republican.

the concensus by the committee investigating is, however, that 9/11 couldnt have been prevented (even if we killed osama since they were sleeper cells), and there was not a political climate that would have allowed us to attack the taliban before 9/11.

as an interesting note, the ONLY person to advocate declaring war on al qaeda and the taliban before 9/11 was sen bob kerrey from nebraska....a democrat!

so next time someone says democrats (i am NOT one) are pro-terrorist, anti-american.... tell them that!

[Cycleon]

Frankly - none of them were doing much before 911 - Clark was there during the entire Clinton years and didnt get much done either - pulled us out of Somalia and basically ran from everywehre else - that may have been decided above him but this seems a political chop job.

Bush told Rummy to come up with a comprehensive review of the military and that was well underway when the crap happened - just that nobody thought it was immenent so nobody was not exactly hopping on it - also lets not forget that Bush was distracted a bit by claims against his legitimacy and then the China spy plane crisis - so I doubt he would have had the political clout to really go out and knock off heads so early - and let me tell you, it takes these departments a LONG time just to put new people in and come up with a plan - really takes about 2 years for a new pres to fill out and get everything underway

[saboudian]

Just curious if anyone saw Clarke on Larry King last night, as he brought up some interesting points again, and if you saw it Cyc you might just change your mind(not calling you or anything ) And it doesn't seem like he was just attacking Bush, he also attacked Clinton. The one thing that really impresses me about him is that he admits 9/11 a failure and he apologizes, something no one has done, and you'll never see the current administration do. The consensus I get about 9/11 being prevented is that we simply don't know.

Its really interesting watching the white house's response, what the hell is up with condy rice? Appears on all these talk shows saying clarke is pretty much angry cause he didn't get a job(which is untrue), doesn't even talk about revoking any of his points, and she won't testify in front of the 9/11 investigation committee. WTF?

[Tock]

Its really interesting watching the white house's response, what the hell is up with condy rice? Appears on all these talk shows saying clarke is pretty much angry cause he didn't get a job(which is untrue), doesn't even talk about revoking any of his points, and she won't testify in front of the 9/11 investigation committee. WTF?

I'm usually (not always, but usually) right on these things, but Condy Rice seems like the sort of person who memorizes answers to everything and has trouble answering simple stuff. She seems to be rigid in her thinking, is the sort of personality unwilling to look at things from different perspectives, not a creative thinker.
I suppose there are things to be said for that, there are strengths and weaknesses in just about every position, but still, there's something about her that strikes me as a bit strange.
--Tock