[Pukin Dog]

What else ya got, Democrats?

This one just bit the dust.

[Reagan Man]

"It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months," said the Jan. 20, 2003, letter from Clarke to Bush. "I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th."

Heard this earlier today. It would appear that this little historical document makes this book out to be a fabrication and Clarke himself, a liar.

[JOE6PAK]

"Looks like this plan has back-fired Dick."

[ProudGOP]

I don't see what everyone is excited about.

I hope I'm wrong but it seems to me that this letter can be easily explained away by saying he was being polite, professional, and trying not to burn any bridges.

I don't believe it but the partisan media is just dying to explain this letter away so they can get back to their Bush bashing.

[Fury]

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[VRWC For Truth]

Like shooting fish in a barrel. LMAO

[observer5]

"The White House, seeking to cool criticism..."

AP speak... haha so obvious

[Nachum]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[rwfromkansas]

I saw this on one of the evening news programs (I think CBS). I was pleasantly surprised by the balance of their coverage; they showed several times when Clinton missed OBL, for instance (and said Clinton administration several times).

[NYC Republican]

The media's taking turns trying to bring down Bush any way they can. Check out www.abcnews.com - the lead story shows Bush, then Powell, then a scene from 911...

The caption says TOO LITTLE DONE?

Then, below that, it says "Could al Qaeda have been stopped before 9/11? Was the threat downplayed or even ignored? Top officials from the Bush and Clinton presidencies were publicly grilled by a panel probing the attacks. "... so.... why isn't Klinton's picture shown? DISGRACEFUL!!!

[Freedom2specul8]

This is great!

[b4its2late]

Self destructing dems.

[Brilliant]

This guy, Clarke, must be on the take from the Dem Party.

[alrea]

The Clarke appearance does more damage to the credibility of 60 minutes and Viacom, and the whole American media complex than it does to Clarke, or JFKerry.

The Clinton's could not be involved in this cluster.

[jla]

:^)

[FreeAtlanta]

Here is the Whitehouse link It is not biased by the AP slant. Look about 2/3rds down.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think we went through that yesterday. We went through a lot of the assertions that were being made. And I think maybe one thing to look back to is the Dick Clarke of January 30th, 2003, who submitted a letter of resignation on that day to the President of the United States. And I think this letter runs counter to what he is now asserting. Let me just read parts of this letter, and we'll be glad to make this letter available to you shortly here. This is in his own words. Mr. Clarke says, "It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months. I will always remember the courage, determination, calm and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th." Then he went on to say, "I will also have fond memories of our briefings for you on cyber-security and the intuitive understanding of its importance that you showed. I thank you again for the opportunity to serve you have provided me, and wish you good fortune as you lead our country through the continuing threats." So at this time period, when he was leaving, there was no mention of the grave concerns he claims to have had about the direction of the war on terrorism, or what we were doing to confront the threat posed by Iraq, by the former regime.

[Amelia]

Also, even though the White House argued that Clarke's memoir was released to do the maximum political damage to Bush in a presidential election year, McClellan would not say when the required national security review of the book was completed, allowing its publication to proceed.

Is the implication here that the WH delayed on the national security review, forcing the book to be released in an election year, or that the WH could have delayed the publication if they'd wanted to?

[evad]

oops!!

gotcha

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Ooooh nooooo!

[Cosmo]

It boils down to this: career bureaucrat doesn't receive expected promotion while relative newbie of a black woman becomes ~4th most powerful person in America. That is all there is to say about Richard Clarke.