Ty, its this kind of stuff that gives me pause with Clarke
 

Until 9/11 the American people would not have supported mentioning the embassy bombings, the Cole, or Al Queda.

Gary Hart Column on Salon.com
 

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature...ion/index.html

[discusses the current Commission's failure to request testimony from the 1998-2001 Commission on terrorism, which gave a report to the Bush administration early in 2001.]

Guess who this guy Sadr is aligned with?
 

Exactly. So rather than waste our time with this namby-pamby democracy crap, we should install a brutal puppet dictator who'll slaughter these bastards and keep them in line.

Kind of like Saddam. But this time, he'll be "our" Saddam

Guess who this guy Sadr is aligned with?
 

Huh? The man is "opening offices" for Hamas and Hezbollah (in the future). How does that indicate that the people in the uprising were not Iraqi?

Of course, as I said yesterday, this does suggest that the war may end up benefitting terror organizations.

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So Ty posts Clarke's listing of relevant operational factors for why invading Afghanistan was not practicable pre-2001, and you say that "well, something more should have been done." But when it is suggested that we shouyld have pulled out all the stops to find OBL after he fled to Pakistan once we did go into Afghanistan, you give the admin a pass: "What more could we have done once they retreated to the Paki border? We have just recently gotten the Pakis to be more willing to help us out, but that has taken time and negotiation."

On the larger point, it is of course entirely your right to evaluate Clarke' credibility based on your subjective impression of him and his motives, which is why I didn't jump into this fray yesterday. But the thing that has struck me throughout the 2 weeks that we have been chewing on this guy's book and testimony is that he has held up very well (a lot better than I thought he would). Maybe this Wash Times article will provide more traction for those seeking to silence him, but I for one am waiting for a non-Moonie paper to look at the document before I jump too far into that one.

Ty, its this kind of stuff that gives me pause with Clarke
 

I guess that includes Rumsfeld, who said that the Cole was a Clinton problem when the attack was finally linked to OBL during the Bush admin, three months after the attack itself.

gas tax
 

Cheney Tax Plan From '86 Would Have Raised Gas Prices
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/politics/06CHEN.html

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The operational factors precluding invasion do not hold up to scrutiny. See my prior posts.

Wait till Condi testifies.

Ty, its this kind of stuff that gives me pause with Clarke
 

When did he say that?

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Board motto!

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I, too, think Condi speaks well and looks smashing in a pantsuit, but I don't understand this particular article of faith. What will she tell us that she hasn't told us during her ample news interviews?

Ty, its this kind of stuff that gives me pause with Clarke
 

When flinging less funny one liners back at Hank I usually don't expect to have to find citations, but since you ask:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17798-2004Mar23.html#rumsfeld

I just don't agree that the failure to respond to the Cole can solely be laid at Clinton's feet. If it was so clear that we needed to strike back, why did the subsequent admin "form a commission" and "implement recommendations" instead of pulling out the hammer? Unless it was a Dukakis admin, in which I think such a response would be quite standard.

At any rate, to engage in this commission/recommendation process and then say that "well, now it's too late to strike back" is about as disingenuous as you can get. And this isn't just my usual allergic reaction to Rummy, whom I've started to like more when I've seen him interviewed over the past several months...

Again, I'm not saying it's totally the Bushes problem either. I'm saying there were a lot of failures to go around, including to Mr. Clarke. The "Clinton ignored the Cole" stuff just strikes a chord with me lately, because many folks seem to think that happened in 1997 or something. No one here, of course.

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The truth? Ah, I kill me sometimes.

Actually I don't get it either. The WH's assertion of privilege and preference that she not be under oath seem to indicate to me that they don't have sgtclub's confidence in her. Combining that with the few nonsubstantive slipups and contradictions she had during her tv appearances and I think she's going to be facing a motivated group of commissioners with a fair amount of ammo to throw at her.

Ty, its this kind of stuff that gives me pause with Clarke
 

The quote you cited doesn't exactly have the spin you put on it, but point taken.

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No, they have the understandable, and more than reasonable, concern that she will provide handsome background scenery for long-winded, political diatribes and lectures. Public hearings are less about gathering information from witnesses and more about setting out the commissioners/senators/reps' political agenda.