Monday, March 29, 2004
Dick Clarke and "American Grandstand"
Is it just me, or has the debate over and coverage of the once-promising 9/11 commission quickly degenerated into icky, childish gamesmanship on both sides of the aisle
Richard Clarke--who has a book to sell--accuses the President of insisting on turning over every rock to see if there was a Hussein connection to 9/11. As if that were a problem.
Then the Bush Administration initially denies that to be the case--tacitly implying that that is somehow a problem--before finally coming out and saying 'yeah, we did want to explore the connection. So what?'
And then the Republican leadership floats a perjury charge, and suggest we declassify certain documents--documents which are presumeably classified for a reason--in order to discredit Clarke for it's own political ends.
Clarke responds by challenging the Administration to declassify everything--including, presumeably, documents Clarke classified himself--again, presumeably, for a reason.
In this case, to insulate himself from an irresponsibly levied perjury allegation--the interests of the Republic be damned.
And the media, rather than focusing sober attention on lessons learned and recommended refinements to best practices, is obediently turning the hearings into a campaign event.
Was holding a responsible inquiry during an election year just too much to ask?
Meanwhile, Clarke's going to climb up the NYT bestseller list, and the national debate is focusing on everything except the one critical issue at hand:
How can we best tear the enemy's guts out by the roots?
Splash, out
Jason
Richard Clarke--who has a book to sell--accuses the President of insisting on turning over every rock to see if there was a Hussein connection to 9/11. As if that were a problem.
Then the Bush Administration initially denies that to be the case--tacitly implying that that is somehow a problem--before finally coming out and saying 'yeah, we did want to explore the connection. So what?'
And then the Republican leadership floats a perjury charge, and suggest we declassify certain documents--documents which are presumeably classified for a reason--in order to discredit Clarke for it's own political ends.
Clarke responds by challenging the Administration to declassify everything--including, presumeably, documents Clarke classified himself--again, presumeably, for a reason.
In this case, to insulate himself from an irresponsibly levied perjury allegation--the interests of the Republic be damned.
And the media, rather than focusing sober attention on lessons learned and recommended refinements to best practices, is obediently turning the hearings into a campaign event.
Was holding a responsible inquiry during an election year just too much to ask?
Meanwhile, Clarke's going to climb up the NYT bestseller list, and the national debate is focusing on everything except the one critical issue at hand:
How can we best tear the enemy's guts out by the roots?
Splash, out
Jason
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