How to focus the Clarke affair. (Core questions)

[troublemaker]

Let's maintain our focus here. This is one of those stories too complicated for media types to understand so they play it as a horse race. We need to hone the issue.

a) If Clark was lying in his 2002 background briefing and congressional testimony then EVERYONE at the White House was lying. Clarke said the same things as Rice, Fleisher, Card, etc.

b) If Clarke was NOT lying in 2002 then it's implied that his current testimony and his book are false. THIS IS THE ISSUE! If Clarke's testimony today is false, how? Where? Can anyone cite a substantial allegation that's false? (Whether Rumsfeld was at the Sept. 4 meeting or whether Rice had heard of al Qeada are not substantial allegations.)

Get this out every way you can--emails, letters to the editor, water-cooler chat, call-in shows, etc.:
Almost everything Clarke is saying today has been validated by the 9/11 commission staff report.

Another vital talking point: The White House has already lost credibility on this story because they lied about the Bush "Iraq! Saddam!" situation room incident. When other witnesses came forward the WH withdrew their claim. The only person in the WH who could have possibly "known" the story wasn't true was Bush (think about it) so it is established that Bush himself lied, telling his staff that the meeting never happened, and that Bush then had to admit it DID happen.


BIG QUESTION: Did Condi Rice (or anyone else) claim that the WH had made Clarke's January 2001 plan more aggressive? More pointedly, who in the WH has claimed or implied that the Bush WH had added military options to the plan? That was a lie, and not just according to Clarke, but according to the 9/11 commission staff report and even Dick Armitage. The Sept 4th plan exists on paper. This isn't a swearing contest because there's a factual answer. But the WH will not declassify the documents that prove Clarke is telling the truth. Fortunately the comission has described them for us. If anyone can add a link to relevant passages of the 9/11 comm. rpt. please do so.

So scour all 2002-2004 WH statements for claims of a more aggressive policy and implications that Bush had any plans whatsoever, pre-9/11, to intervene militarily in Afghanistan.

Everything else is a footnote.

[displacedtexan]

1. The aces up Bush*'s sleeve

No one expects him to remember jack shit because he's an idiot. He's an idiot, don'tcha know?
Conversely, when he's focused on something or someone, he's tenacious, don'tcha know?
When he's accused of something evil, they play the idiot ace; when he's accused of being an idiot, they play they play the tenacious ace.

Clarke is right: people will judge Bush* by the number of body bags. We've got to get documentation of deaths, maiming, and suicides from the freak monkey's failed policy decisions (even the economic ones).