"This normal deck of cards contains 52 different photos with 52 different reasons as to why we should re-elect President Bush."
Here's the story Clarke may be helping the Commission Dems fly: Even though the Cole bombing happened on Clinton's watch (Oct 2000), it was really too late in his term to have reasonably expected him to do anything about it; therefore the failure to retaliate against bin Laden (and, as the story goes, to neutralize him so that 9/11 could have been prevented) is Bush's fault. I think Clarke will be there to say this, and to tell the Commission -- as [he'll be telling the world on CBS Sunday night]-- that he was Cassandra screaming for something to be done about bin Laden prior to 9/11 but he couldn't get the Bush people to listen.
The story is total BS. First, even if there had not been an unprecedented delay in resolving the 2000 presidential election, the Cole attack happened almost a month before the ELECTION, not a month before THE END OF CLINTON's TERM; he was going to be president for nearly 3 more months, and if Gore had won it would have essentially been a continuation of the same administration. If a military response was called for, it was incumbent on Clinton to respond . . . immediately. If, as happened, Bush had emerged as the winner, it would have been entirely appropriate for Clinton to coordinate what he was doing with Bush and his transition team (just as Bush 41 coordinated what he was doing in Somalia before Clinton assumed the office in 1993); but that is not an excuse for not responding. Clinton didn't do anything -- and not because he was deferring to a new admin, but because he NEVER wanted to do anything if it meant meaningful military action, and because he was too busy pardoning Mark Rich and the Weather Underground to be bothered with bin Laden.
By the time the Bush got in, it was 3 mos after the Cole, and it took another 1 to 8 mos to get the major players of his admin confirmed and in place. Further, it makes no sense to look at the Cole attack in isolation -- it was part of a pattern of attacks by a growing entity; that situation did not call for a specific retaliation for Cole but for an entire rethinking about al Qaeda. Regardless of what Clarke says, that precisely is what was done: a new counterterrorism policy was developed -- shifting from containment to eradication of al Qaeda and its sanctuaries -- and drafts were circulated at the cabinet level in June and the first week of September 2001 (the latter is virtually the same as the directive GWB signed after the 9/11 attacks). Of course 9/11 happened despite all this, but that hardly means intense rethinking and planning was not underway beforehand -- rethinking and planning that had lots to do with the spectacularly swift and decisive military campaigns post-9/11. And Clarke is certifiably insane if he thinks Bush could have garnered public support or put together a coalition BEFORE the 9/11 attacks. To do what we did required key help from countries (like Pakistan) who would not have given us that help absent the 9/11 attacks. (Think about this: We've seen the various objections to the military operation against Iraq -- and that was AFTER 9/11 and involved a country in open defiance of UN resolutions satisfaction of which were the condition for ending the first Gulf War; what do you figure the Dems, the NYT, CBS, etc. have said if Bush had decided to invade Afghanistan BEFORE 9/11?)
"This normal deck of cards contains 52 different photos with 52 different reasons as to why we should re-elect President Bush."