I don't like wading into this, am preferring to focus on more timeless issues, but...
Richard Clarke has been bashing the Bush administration, and trying to give the impression (a) he has no partisan motivations for what he's doing and (b) he has no monetary motivations.
In terms of the money, it's clear the timing of the release of his book reflects otherwise, and some of the 9/11 families are outraged about that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice this once passed-over bureaucrat is now getting pleny of cash and the attention he desired.
But regarding Clarke's political alignments: Check out this masterful bit of deceptive wording caught by the guys over at Power Line. Here's Clarke before the 9/11 committee:
Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raise it. I've been accused of being a member of John Kerry's campaign team several times this week, including by the White House. So let's just lay that one to bed. I'm not working for the Kerry campaign. Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. And I asked for a Republican ballot.
So Clarke voted for Bush? He's a Republican?
Sounds like it, doesn't it?
No, here's what Hindrocket discovered:
There was no race in the Democratic primary in 2000, so Clarke crossed over to vote for John McCain in the Republican primary. (I think it's safe to assume he didn't vote for Gary Bauer, Alan Keyes or Steve Forbes, who were the other candidates in the race.)
As Clarke later confirmed in an interview with Tim Russert, emphasis added:
Russert: Did you vote for George Bush in 2000?
Clarke: No I did not.
Russert: Did you vote for Al Gore?
Clarke: Yes I did.
As Hindrocket remarks, "Clinton could not have done it better." Indeed.
And Bit's Blog goes one better and points out how deeply partisan Clarke really is, as revealed by his campaign contributions, exposed in Insight Magazine:
In 2002, while still on the Bush National Security Council (NSC), Clarke gave the legal maximum limit of $2,000 to a Democratic candidate for Congress, Steve Andreasen, who tried to unseat Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota. Andreason had been director for defense policy and arms control on the Clinton NSC. In making his donations of $1,000 on July 22 and another $1,000 on Nov. 7, 2002, Clarke listed his occupation as "U.S. Government/Civil Servant," according to FEC records indexed with the Center for Responsive Politics.
Clarke maxed out again in the 2004 election cycle, donating $2,000 to another Clinton White House veteran, Jamie Metzl, who is running as a Democrat for Congress from Missouri. Metzl was a staffer on the Clinton NSC and worked for Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) as deputy staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. With that donation, made on Sept. 15, 2003, after his resignation from the Bush NSC, Clarke listed his occupation as "Self-Employed/Consultant."
FEC records show that Clarke reported no political contributions when he worked in the Clinton administration in the electoral cycles of the 1990s and 2000, when he said he was a Republican.
Not a single Republican donation, instead, he donated the maximum to Democrats. And claimed to be a non-partisan-motivated Republican?
What an amazing display of chutzpah. What duplicity!
Did he think he wouldn't get caught? He was wrong!
Did he think the media would give this information a pass?
If so, he was dead right, sadly.
I came across your site randomly browsing for some commentary on ye olde Laffer Curve.
I'd like to nitpick a couple of points.
1) Everyone accuses him of the timing on his book. They're wrong, and they get a free pass on that. ;)
From a salon.com interview with Mr Clarke
Why did you write the book now? That's a question they raise. Did it occur to you that this would be an election year and it would be especially controversial because of that, and that these commission hearings were coming up?
I wanted the book to come out much earlier, but the White House has a policy of reviewing the text of all books written by former White House personnel -- to review them for security reasons. And they actually took a very long time to do that. This book could have come out much earlier. It's the White House that decided when it would be published, not me. I turned it in toward the end of last year, and even though there was nothing in it that was not already obviously unclassified, they took a very, very long time.
2) I haven't seen his entire voting record, but I would suspect that we'd need to see his entire record before declaring him as a Democrat or a Republican.
And an anecdotal bit. One of my best friends is a longtime republican, originally of the Reaganite/Thatcherite mold and he's going to vote ( reluctantly I'll add ) for Kerry this coming election. I would wager that this one vote for him is not making him cross parties.
I find it demoralizing that he and I can have excellent conversation on topics over which we disagree ( I tend be much more of a 'liberal' than he is. ) and have no need of getting shrill or polarized. I think we both recognize that we're for the same goals in the end, we just oftentimes disagree on the road to get there.
-Shay
Shay,
Nitpick away! That's what the comments are here for.
A couple of responses:
Timing: I wasn't really referring to the precise timing (this week or that one) but rather it's release right before the election.
I think one could only show the White House controlled the timing if one was able to show that the review time was somehow grossly different for Clarke than others. In fact, that doesn't seem to be the case, since the publisher apparently knew the expected review time in advance.
To contrary, according to this Clarke stated it was his publisher (Viacom, parent of CBS) which controlled the timing, not the White House.
Unless one can actually show something unusual about the White House review time, all of the above would seem (to me, anyway) to refute your contention.
Clarke's voting record: We don't need to review his entire life history of voting to notice that it's misleading to pretend to have been a loyal Republican recently when one has, in fact, voted for and donated exclusively to Democrats in the last election.
It's entirely possible a person might cross party lines for a single vote or two. I think most of us do it now and then, myself included. But I don't max out my dontations to the party I claim to be opposed to. (Good heavens, man, that's $4,000 in donations!) That's a pretty big two-term fluke, don't you think?
The misleading statement used before the 9/11 committee seems to speak pretty well for Clarke's honesty. Isn't it obvious he's deliberately trying to be deceitful, at least on that count?
Last, what's demoralizing about having "excellent conversation" when you disagree? In my mind, it's the height of civil discourse. Perhaps someday one of you will change your minds.
- Tim
I came across your site randomly browsing for some commentary on ye olde Laffer Curve.
I'd like to nitpick a couple of points.
1) Everyone accuses him of the timing on his book. They're wrong, and they get a free pass on that. ;)
From a salon.com interview with Mr Clarke
Why did you write the book now? That's a question they raise. Did it occur to you that this would be an election year and it would be especially controversial because of that, and that these commission hearings were coming up?
I wanted the book to come out much earlier, but the White House has a policy of reviewing the text of all books written by former White House personnel -- to review them for security reasons. And they actually took a very long time to do that. This book could have come out much earlier. It's the White House that decided when it would be published, not me. I turned it in toward the end of last year, and even though there was nothing in it that was not already obviously unclassified, they took a very, very long time.
2) I haven't seen his entire voting record, but I would suspect that we'd need to see his entire record before declaring him as a Democrat or a Republican.
And an anecdotal bit. One of my best friends is a longtime republican, originally of the Reaganite/Thatcherite mold and he's going to vote ( reluctantly I'll add ) for Kerry this coming election. I would wager that this one vote for him is not making him cross parties.
I find it demoralizing that he and I can have excellent conversation on topics over which we disagree ( I tend be much more of a 'liberal' than he is. ) and have no need of getting shrill or polarized. I think we both recognize that we're for the same goals in the end, we just oftentimes disagree on the road to get there.
-Shay
Posted by: Shay4Brains on March 30, 2004 10:18 PM