I agree Clarke is a distraction. The fact that Kerry went off on a ski trip just before the release of the book and now he's looking for surgery "sympathy" kinda puts him in a shadow.
I think the Dems "overplayed this" and they're going to get bit in the arse because the Congressional Hearings, being first, is the other side of the picture being portrayed by Clarke. He's a real egomaniac with illusions of his powers. He sure doesn't come off as a team player.
This raises a question, which admittedly I don't have the answer to: If there is already a congressional investigation into 9/11, why was this Commission established? (I suspect the answer is that the anti-Bush crowd was screaming for it.)