Posted on 03/26/2004 4:59:32 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
I'm not so sure this even comes down to "votes" for or against "declassifying" Clarkes testimony.
From an article I read today;
"No immediate information was available on how the declassification process works, but one GOP aide said the CIA and perhaps the White House would play a role in determining whether to make the testimony public."
Good hunting!
I believe this Admin.
Can you post this? I'm sure Hannity or Rush would run with it.
Say what??
"He made contributions to Democrats" is, by itself, evidence for mistrusting his claim to be a lifelong Republican. (It's not ROCK-SOLID PROOF against his claim to be a lifelong Republican, but it's certainly a reason to *mistrust* it.)
For example: I tell you about two people
-Person A made contributions to Democrats in recent years
-Person B didn't.
Now then, you tell me, which one's more likely to be a lifelong Republican in your view?
I personally think Clarke is an American hero. He is one of the few people in power to really try to do something about the al Qaeda threat.
Perhaps your standards for heroism are lower than mine, because to me, while "trying to do something" is nice, I'd be more impressed by actually DOING something.
Clarke had a high position and Bill Clinton's ear for eight years while "Al Qaeda" attacked the World Trade Center, possibly the Oklahoma City building (IN CLARKE'S OPINION!), Khobar towers, embassies in Africa, and USS Cole. I don't know what-all Clarke "tried" to do about all that, but let's summarize what they actually DID do:
-prosecution of, like, six guys for the '93 WTC bombing
-bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan (JUSTIFIED BY CITING IRAQI LINKS)
-bombing of Iraqi intelligence headquarters (oh wait supposedly this was for other, non Al Qaeda related reasons, like... um....)
-intervention in a Yugoslavian civil war on behalf of Al Qaeda-linked Muslims
There's probably a few more items but I'm starting to get sick so I'll stop here.
All the meanwhile Clarke was apparently whispering in Clinton's ear the following words.... there's no possible linkage between Iraq and Al Qaeda... no possible linkage between Iraq and Al Qaeda
And then Bush asked him to investigate the possibility (just to look into it!) and he threw a hissy fit and wrote a book. Yup, some hero.
Both the Dems AND the Pubs come off very badly here.
Agreed, of course. 9/11 was obviously a failure.
But the one who comes off the worst in all this is Richard Clarke, in my opinion.
He seems to have fallen so deeply in love with his "Al Qaeda has no links" theory that he couldn't be bothered to ever challenge it. The more I hear about this guy and his infallible, indignant belief that anyone who asks him to look into Iraq-Al Qaeda links is a fool or "obsessed", the more convinced I become that Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda.
So brave of Hero Kerry to be willing to risk prison time -- for one of the little people.
It does seem as though there is some orchestrated ploy underway here, so I would tread very lightly. With Clarke's long tenure in intelligence matters, I would assume there is a bigger game being played. He and the Dems putting him up to this surely anticipated this response. Kerry now goads the President to prosecute Clarke. What gives? It is just too easy a case.
My concern with pushing for a perjury hearing before the congressional committee would be that Clarke goes before the committee and testifies that he was lying to the committee in 2002, that he was instructed to lie by the president himself and that he was pressured to lie. Tin-foil? Cynical? There are no depths to which the Democrats will not sink.
For what it's worth, "Tiny Tommy" was running around yesterday trying to plant the "Clarke is a victim" line, in an apparent attempt to immunize him from the negative consequences of his actions. It's not like him 'free lance', so I'd guess that's the agreed tactic.
It's always possible it was part of a "please don't throw me in the briar patch" routine, though.
Democrats
Posted March 25, 2004
By J. Michael Waller
Former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke insists his attacks on President George W. Bush have nothing to do with politics, but an Insight check of Federal Election Commission (FEC) records shows that his only political contributions in the last decade have gone to Democrats.
Clarke is suspected of using his former post in the Bush White House as a weapon with which to slash and wound the president during his re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). The Kerry campaign's coordinator for national security issues, Rand Beers, has described Clarke as his "best friend." According to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where Clarke and Beers are adjunct lecturers, they teach a course together about terrorism. Clarke's detailed Harvard biography specifically mentions his service under President Ronald Reagan and the elder President Bush, but says nothing about his eight years working for President Bill Clinton.
During the 9/11 commission hearings this week, Clarke denied any partisan leanings. "Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raised it," he told Commissioner John Lehman, pointing out that he, like Lehman, had served in the Reagan administration. "The White House has said that my book is an audition for a high-level position in the Kerry campaign," he said. "So let me say here, as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the Kerry administration, should there be one." He said he was a registered Republican in 2000.
But what about this presidential election year? According to FEC records, Clarke has been giving his money to Democratic friends -- not Republicans -- running for national office
In 2002, while still on the Bush National Security Council (NSC), Clarke gave the legal maximum limit of $2,000 to a Democratic candidate for Congress, Steve Andreasen, who tried to unseat Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota. Andreason had been director for defense policy and arms control on the Clinton NSC. In making his donations of $1,000 on July 22 and another $1,000 on Nov. 7, 2002, Clarke listed his occupation as "U.S. Government/Civil Servant," according to FEC records indexed with the Center for Responsive Politics.
Clarke maxed out again in the 2004 election cycle, donating $2,000 to another Clinton White House veteran, Jamie Metzl, who is running as a Democrat for Congress from Missouri. Metzl was a staffer on the Clinton NSC and worked for Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) as deputy staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. With that donation, made on Sept. 15, 2003, after his resignation from the Bush NSC, Clarke listed his occupation as "Self-Employed/Consultant."
FEC records show that Clarke reported no political contributions when he worked in the Clinton administration in the electoral cycles of the 1990s and 2000, when he said he was a Republican.
Maybe he did, but he has NEVER given contributions to a Republican only the rats.
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