[Dr. Frank fan]

Sez who? He's only donated money to Democrats, and admits to voting in a Republican primary exactly once in his life -- for John McCain!

I have to stand corrected after continuing reading this thread. I was going by Clarke's self-statements (so the answer to your question is "sez Clarke"... which I should have known proves nothing :)

I was not aware of his donations nor of his voting records, just that he claimed to be a Republican. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that his Republicanness turned out to be (what now seems like) a phony front designed to insulate him from criticism.

I was wrong. Clarke is, by all evidence, a Democrat and it now seems likely to me that one can add partisanness to the other charges (of incompetence, insubordination, blinkeredness, etc) against him when evaluating his trustworthiness. Thanks for the correction,

[NYCVirago]

I was not aware of his donations nor of his voting records, just that he claimed to be a Republican. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that his Republicanness turned out to be (what now seems like) a phony front designed to insulate him from criticism.

No problem -- the media has done its best to paint him as a Republican, when he most definitely is not! For one thing, they keep on saying he voted for W in 2000, even though I have yet to see a quote from him stating that. If I hadn't been following what fellow freepers had said on this, I would have thought he was a Republican, too! Take care.

[marcinrochester]

The FEC records say Clarke made contributions to Democrats recently, in 2004. He certainly is a Democrat now. He also gave to a (Dem) ex-coworker running for Congress in 2002. The original article in Insight mentioned no other contributions. So there is no evidence I've seen to mistrust his claim to be a lifelong Republican.

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. Both the Dems AND the Pubs come off very badly here.