Clarke's "...is, is" Moment
Can anyone who served in the Clinton administration speak in direct terms? Must we parse their every word to understand the real meaning behind what they are saying?
Appearing on yesterday's edition of Meet The Press, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke explained away the letter he gave to President Bush as he left government service in terms that reminds one of Clinton's famous, "It depends what the meaning of is, is" testimony before a government inquiry. Specifically, he now wants us to believe that when he stated to Bush, that, "I will always have fond memories of our briefings for you on cybersecurity", that he wasn't padding his resume by getting on the record that he, Richard Clarke was on top of this coming threat, but instead was just being nice and was carefully avoiding telling Bush that, in Clarke's view, the Bush administration's approach to terror was more flawed than Jesse Jackson's non-profit tax status. (He even managed to invoke "Mother" in his response.) That he speaks in such cute ways makes me wonder if he did his job the same way, and if so, then without having a Department of Intepreting What Dick Clarke Means, how could anyone understand him? In this same interview he cites a handwritten note from President Bush as evidence that the President appreciated his service. "Dear Dick, you will be missed. You served our nation with distinction and honor. You have left a positive mark on our government." He seems to think that we can assertain the President's meaning without having to read between the lines, imagine how much more glowing Bush's tribute might have been had Clarke been so clear and direct in his manner; instead of being a bureacratic spin meister.
There has been considerable critcism of the Bush administration for their conjecture regarding Clarke's motivation for writing his recent book. Well, if you are a John Kerry supporter, and you bought into Kerry's implied assertion that since a heckler had voted for Bush, and the man's questions were without substance and unworthy of response, then learning from Clarke's acknowledgement on MTP that he did not vote for Bush you already understand everything about this man and his motivations - if you have a brain you know better than to make that leap of logic. Clarke may or may not be explainable as a partisan looking to harm the other party's man, but if you start down that route you may end up wondering, and believing that he actually kept information from the administration so that the terrorists could strike and embarrass President Bush! The entire question of why he is doing this (criticizing his former employer) is moot. Only Clarke knows, and if he told us, could we read between the lines to understand what he said anyway?
(What I also find annoying is that the the press keeps asking the Bush administration why he did this, and then they make the answer they get bigger than the original question.)
I do not believe Clarke wanted terrorists to strike the homeland, or that he acted in a way that would allow it to happen, but I believe that he sees himself as the man on counter-terror, and I think he apologized to the 9-11 families because he truly believes that he did let us all down. With Russert he cited a six week period immediately prior to 9-11 in which he ordered a heightened state of alert: "I did these things, my committee did these things," including warnings to the FAA. Is it unreasonable to think that he is shouldering more self-blame for cancelling that alert in August, '01 than he should? Living with an 'if only I had' rattle inside your cranium will warp your brain. The terrorists caused the attack. Nobody in our government is to blame!
That said, I am not particularly impressed that (if you believe Clarke) he left counter-terror willingly: "I wasn't demoted to a position of national cybersecurity adviser.....I asked in June of 2001 to be transferred from the terrorism job..." and created a whole new position for himself precisely at a time when he believed the administration was not properly protecting us. I personally do not believe that this administration was that lax, but if Clarke did, if he thought that he alone was on the right track, how could he leave and leave us all unprotected? Sure Cyber-terror is important, we need to work to prevent it, but, how many would die if our computers went down? Are we so far removed from the technologies of twenty years ago that without computers we would become unviable tissue masses? The field he left had the potential for mortal consequences (as we have seen) and he wants us to believe that the one man who could stop it went off to play with zeros and ones.
Or, so he seems to say.
