**Richard Clarke Takes Position as ABC News Consultant**

ABC News | March 25, 2004

[Howlin]

I don't do this very often, so forgive me.

I was watching the ABC program tonight on Donald Rumsfeld at 8 P.M. EST.

Right in the middle of the show, here appears Richard Clarke, and down in the corner is the little ABC logo with the words ABC (SOMETHING) CONSULTANT. (Not sure what TYPE of consultant, but definitely CONSULTANT.

[Just mythoughts]

"...During a long conversation with a senior administration official,....."

Novak sure is an old sly fox if his intent was to out a "covered" agent, and pretend to not know that is what he did.

Why isn't he being charge with the outing since it was via his print that the name was outted????


I do not know who did the talking to Novak, but Clarke in his appearance and manner does not fit the type to quietly out someone in an offhanded manner.

[maica]

So what bad news for the lefties are they trying to hide with this bs?

%%%%

That Kerry is the worst possible candidate they have ever almost nominated?

That the economy is doing so well that if it was any stronger, Greenspan would be wringing his hands?

That their internal poll numbers on Bush/Kerry are much less favorable to JFK than anything shown on TV?

That the handover in Iraq on June 30 will not embarrass the US?

That they cannot find the name Halliburton anywhere in the UN Oil for Food (and weapons and palaces) scandal?

That somebody (McAwful) is so dumb that he organized a Democrat
Unity
Day
and a

Democrat
Unity
Dinner

^^

How'm I doing?

[robomurph]

Could Mr. Clarke be the guy who leaked the 'news' that Plame was a CIA operative to Novak? Could he be the guy who shopped the story around to six news services? Could he be covering his arse from being nailed as the leaker by making a lot of noise just in case he is exposed as that 'administration source?'

I think you may be on to something. Novak and Clarke have three decades of overlap in Washington going back to the Nixon administration. Clarke is just the type of source Novak would cultivate. Novak highlights Clarke's hard-line response to the Cole bombing in the column linked below.

Novak's column on "Losing bin Laden"

Is it possible that the whole Plame "Outing" was engineered to create a leak scandal for the Bush administration and create a retirement enhancing book deal for a friend, Ambassador Wilson?

[Shermy]

The idea that Clarke was the leaker to Novak during a "long (boozy?) conversation is plausible since Clarke could have been fairly described, then, as both a "senior administration" and "no partisan gunslinger."

And how about the often overlooked leak to Newsday?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/950676/posts

"Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak..."

Clarke could have also been fairly described as an "intelligence official". Though Newsday implies there was more than lone that leaked to them.

And we know Clarke is Gabby and self-important....

Just a theory...thanks Piasa!

[Shermy]

Is it possible that the whole Plame "Outing" was engineered to create a leak scandal for the Bush administration and create a retirement enhancing book deal for a friend, Ambassador Wilson?

It's also possible that in Novak's mind it was really no big deal...but he stepped on Wilson's parade, inadvertently fueling Wilson's self-promotion.

[Shermy]

"...During a long conversation with a senior administration official,....."

When he made this statement he was, in his way, trying to cover himself, and protect his viability as a confidant. That is, the fear no one would talk to him any more...damage control, just like his lame statement that the CIA official who confirmed that Plame was an agent should have urged him more strongly not to reveal the name.

[Grampa Dave]

"That their internal poll numbers on Bush/Kerry are much less favorable to JFK than anything shown on TV?"

This may be the most important choice on your list.

Apparently inspite of their massive hate Bush screams and yells during their primary elections, their low voter turnout was very anemic.

The gay marriage mess is killing them in their focus groups. 60% of voters asked about Gay Marriage are against it with 10% undecided. That means that this mess could cost them the great middle/moderate voters.

We are becoming more broken glass voters for GW, and they are becoming the stay at home party with no moderate support at this time.

However, there is something happening below the radar. It is either some really good news for GW or very bad news for John F'onda Kerry. That is why we are suddenly seeing this coordination uproar re Clarke. It is a replay of the Yellowcake/Joseph Plame Wilson fiasco of last summer.

[Peach]

Rep. Shays said this:
Noting Clarke told the subcommittee in June, 2000 that there was: “no need for an assessment” of the terrorist threat, Shays stated, “Mr. Clarke is engaging in revisionist history, apparently for personal partisan reasons.

Shays noted that at a briefing on June 28, 2000, he asked Mr. Clarke, then serving as President Clinton’s Special Assistant and National Coordinator, Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, when an all-source threat assessment and strategy would be completed. Clarke's answer: “No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment, I know the threat."

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1105656/posts

[Peach]

Rep. Shays said this:
Noting Clarke told the subcommittee in June, 2000 that there was: “no need for an assessment” of the terrorist threat, Shays stated, “Mr. Clarke is engaging in revisionist history, apparently for personal partisan reasons.

Shays noted that at a briefing on June 28, 2000, he asked Mr. Clarke, then serving as President Clinton’s Special Assistant and National Coordinator, Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, when an all-source threat assessment and strategy would be completed. Clarke's answer: “No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment, I know the threat."

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1105656/posts

[BJClinton]

John S. Tritak was a Clinton appointee as director of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office.

[Owen]

The WH is not defending this well. Better to up the ante on them. It's a matter of impressions, not truth.

"Now the opposition is claiming George Bush knew the WTC was going to be attacked and intentionally did nothing to stop it because he explicitly wanted an excuse to attack Iraq. This is absurd and the American people know it. With Tony Blair, GW Bush has led the charge in the war on terror, creating a Dept of Homeland Security that no previous administration even considered . . . ."

By exaggerating the criticism, they reach ridicule magnitude. It is a good tactic. It should be used.

[Mitchell]

Howlin did not say when Clarke became a consultant, only that it was news to her.

This whole thing is just a mistake, but it really ought to be corrected rather than letting rumors propagate.

It seems that Howlin saw a TV caption identifying Clarke as an ABC consultant, jumped to the conclusion that he had just been hired, and posted a Breaking News article based on that incorrect presumption. Here's why I thought that:

• The headline, which she wrote, said:
  **Richard Clarke Takes Position as ABC News Consultant**
    The use of the present tense "takes" means that the hiring just happened now.
   
• She posted it in Breaking News, implying again that the hiring had just happened.
   
• Her comment in #1 was:
  "Looks like Mr. Clarke won't be out of view and/or power for very long!!!!"
  This again suggests that his hiring was a change that would help him maintain some level of prominence.
   
• In #74, she responded to my having pointed out that he wasn't newly hired by writing:
  Then why are they annoucing it today? And why did CBS get that exclusive interview?
  I bet they let him go and hired him back.
  This is from today:
  ""Mr. Clarke has already given 14 hours of testimony to the commission investigating why the government failed to prevent those attacks," said Mr. Stephanopoulos, also noting that Mr. Clarke now works for ABC as a consultant."

By the way, if you look at the last item above, it appears that this rumor started with George Stephanopoulos. Democratic spin for some reason?

[maica]

***Clarke's answer: “No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment, I know the threat." ***

Oh, good, I feel much more reassured now. DC had everything under control!

Do you remember what Sandy Berger said in response to the commission's question about how frequently he met with Clinton? I don't, but it seems to me that Clarke was the guy in the Oval Office on a regular basis, until the change of administration.

So close to his 30 years, he must have been getting angrier and angrier in the spring and summer of 2001, as he became subservient to Dr Rice.

[DB]

Okay, but "off the record" is not the same thing as closed to the public.

[Peach]

There were a few articles this morning on FR that said that Lehman said that Clarke testified in private. Testimony is under oath.

Blockbuster stuff and proof that Clinton KNEW there was a possibility of foreign terrorism in the OKS matter but chose instead to blame Newt and Rush:

On Page 127 [of his new "Against All Enemies"], Clarke notes that it's possible that al-Qaida operatives in the Philippines "taught Terry Nichols how to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building." Intelligence places Nichols there on the same days as Ramzi Yousef, and "we do know that Nichols's bombs did not work before his Philippines stay and were deadly when he returned."

[Peach]

Blockbuster stuff and proof that Clinton KNEW there was a possibility of foreign terrorism in the OKS matter but chose instead to blame Newt and Rush:

On Page 127 [of his new "Against All Enemies"], Clarke notes that it's possible that al-Qaida operatives in the Philippines "taught Terry Nichols how to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building." Intelligence places Nichols there on the same days as Ramzi Yousef, and "we do know that Nichols's bombs did not work before his Philippines stay and were deadly when he returned."

[Charles Martel]

When I get really angry, especially when something makes me suddenly angry, I curse like a Soprano. It ain't pretty.

"In the heat of battle [with the liberals], Petronski wove a tapestry of obscenity that -- as far as we know -- is still hanging in space over Pennsylvania." :-)

Mind your blood pressure, folks - we've got months to go. Stock up on antacid tablets, too.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET


DISNEY owns ABC

Friends of the CLINTONS =
DISNEY Pres EISNER
DISNEY Chrm of Board MITCHELL


Friends of the CLINTONS =
VIACOM
CBS
DON DEWITT
WALTER CRONKITE

Friends of the CLINTONS =
TOM BROKAW
DAN RATHER
PETER JENNINGS
CBS News
ABC News
NBC News
PBS News
CNN News
BBC News



"There are now 3 million more blacks and hispanics living in America than in Election Year 2000"

...DICK MORRIS, FoX News Channel


The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.


NEVER FORGET

[DoorGunner]

According to this newsletter, Richard Clarke was "an on-air consultant for ABC News," BEFORE November 25, 2003:

 

Fall/Winter 2003
BCSIA News
 
Richard Clarke (right, with Dean Joseph Nye), a top counter-terrorism
advisor to the last three presidents, offered his assessment to the Belfer
Center Board November 25 on what the U.S. has done well and what it has
not done well in the war on terror. Clarke has served in the White House
as National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism, Special
Advisor to the President for Cyber Security, and Special Assistant to the
President for Global Affairs. Currently he is Chairman of Good Harbor
Consulting, LLC and an on-air consultant for ABC News.

Page 13
BCSIA
http://www.bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/ documents/newsletter_winter_04.pdf

DG

p.s. More to follow.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for tying this mess in with the Wilson/Plame fiasco for the rats.

I keep getting the feeling that this is another blogging act and attempt to electronically remove GW by the left wing mediots.

It has been back on their back burner simmering until they were ready to use it.

What are they trying to do with this timing?

Blocking good news for GW or bad news for them?