Who Roots For Goliath?

Piling on:

AP - In a highly unusual move, key Republicans in Congress are seeking to declassify testimony that former White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke gave in 2002 about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Friday.

...No immediate information was available on how the declassification process works, but one GOP aide said the CIA (news - web sites) and perhaps the White House would play a role in determining whether to make the testimony public.

That's credible. At a minimum, some bi-partisan group would need to de-classify it. Good luck. Not that we are opposed to setting the truth free, of course...

Bright Idea: give the testimony to the 9/11 Commission for their inclusion in the final report. Although one might think they already have it.

MORE: We continue "Who Roots For Goliath" with the NY Times coverage and excerpts from Bill Frist's speech. Candidates for most implausible pronouncement include:

Dennis Hastert:

"We need to lean forward in making as much information available to the public as possible, without compromising the national security interests of the nation," Mr. Hastert said in a statement.

Can he square that with the separation of powers argument keeping Condi Rice off the stage?

Bill Frist:

...Mr. Clarke makes the outrageous charge that the Bush administration, in its first seven months in office, failed to adequately address the threat posed by Osama bin Laden. . . .

Uhh, 3,000 deaths suggest that "adequately" is the wrong word there. Try "energetically" or "forcefully". We may still be skeptical, but at least we won't laugh out loud.

And, for anonymous Dem staffers:

A senior Democratic Congressional aide said Democratic staff members from both the Senate and House intelligence committees reread Mr. Clarke's 2002 testimony on Friday and that they believed he had been "fully consistent" in his views.

Gee, I thought we all nodded dutifully just yesterday when Richard Clarke explained his August 2002 interview by saying that staffers routinely deliver the spin their bosses want. Or is that only Rep staffers, or Clarke himself?

We await further nominees and a judges decision.

MORE: Rich Lowry blasts Clarke, but doesn't see a perjury charge in his future. No kidding - the Dems would love to hand the file to the Justice Dept, call for a Special Prosecutor, and let the whole thing remain under the legal Cone of Silence until December. Anyone heard from Valerie Plame Wilson lately?

Comments

[Tom Bowler]

In this case I do. A Red Sox fan no less.

[TM]

Hmm, a Red Sox fan rooting for Goliath on the side represents useful emotional diversification. As a Yankees fan, I can only get fully behind one Evil Empire at a time.

And Clarke may be OK, if I can believe this.

[Bastage]

I would add three other recommendations:

First, if Mr. Clarke's testimony is to be released, it should be released in its entirety -- not, as the Bush administration has done in the past, selectively edited so that only portions favorable to the White House are made public.

Second, the Bush administration should de-classify other documents that surround the Clarke testimony, such as his January 25, 2002, plan for action against al Qaeda, in order to clarify the issues that are in dispute.

And finally, the Bush administration should release all other testimony and documents related to 9-11 for which classification can no longer be justified -- including the 27 pages of the Joint Inquiry's final report that address the involvement of a foreign government in supporting some of the 19 hijackers while they lived among us and finalized their evil plot.

The American people deserve to know what their government has done -- and should be doing -- to protect them from terrorists, and who should be held accountable for shortcomings that have left our country vulnerable.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

I hope that Richard Clarke takes a look at the Kerry for President blog, where he can see a picture of Theresa and the widow of the man who is responsible more than anyone else for the FBI being unable to get a search warrant for the laptop computer of the Al Qaeda member who was arrested in August 2001 for his suspicious actions in a Minnesota flight school:

http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/001230.html#001230

In the comments there is this endorsement from a fan:

----------------------------
Bethine Church is such a lovely lady. Her husband, Frank, was an idol of mine.

Kerry in '04

Posted by: big sky brad on February 24, 2004 02:42 PM
----------------------------

The "idol's" legacy being the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 (iirc).

[HH]

"First, if Mr. Clarke's testimony is to be released, it should be released in its entirety -- not, as the Bush administration has done in the past, selectively edited so that only portions favorable to the White House are made public."

Thus far everything released about him has been released in its entirety.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

What a whiner this guy is. Keeping in mind that Clarke is the one who came forward with a book designed to destroy Geo. W. Bush's (and Condi's) professional reputation, and end his political career, let's look at Meet the Press:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4608698/

----------quote------------
MR. CLARKE: Because I have no obligation anymore to spin. When you're in the White House, you spin. And people have been doing a lot of that against me this week. You know, they're engaged in a campaign. People on the taxpayers' rolls, dozens of people, are engaged in the campaign to destroy me, personally and professionally, because I had the temerity to suggest that the American people should consider whether or not the president had done a good job on the war on terrorism. The issue is not me. The issue is the president's job on the role on terrorism.

.... They don't want to talk about the effect on the war on terrorism of our invasion of Iraq. And so, instead, A, they try to do character assassination of me; but, B, they try to punish me for having said it by going after my professional life, by going after me, besmirching me. This is just not appropriate.
------------endquote----------

Yeah, no fair guys. He had Kingsies.

[HH]

Time, of course, has exposed that he still spins. So who are you spinning for now Clarke?