Anyone who has watched CNN, or heard the questions put to Bush last night during the press conference, or heard any other outlet for the standard liberal party line is aware:

Clarke apologized, Bush didn't!

Doesn't that make Clarke a braver, better person than Bush?

Not necessarily.

First, it's worth noting that an apology (not mere sympathy) is appropriate when someone has done something wrong. For example, if something bad happens, and someone could have prevented it, a apology would be appropriate.

Yet whole purpose of the 9/11 panel is to determine what, if anything, went wrong. Demands for an apology before blame is found seems to be a shortcut means of asking Bush to testify that he's particularly to blame.

But if we're going to be blaming Bush, it's completely clear there are a long line of people in front of him, with far more direct roles, including OBL himself, Bill Clinton (turned down Sudan's offers regarduing bin Laden, refused to fire when in Predator drone sights), Jamie Gorelick (made info sharing more difficult between FBI and CIA), and even John Kerry (pushed to evicerate CIA funding), and we, the American public (opposes racial profiling, would have screamed had Ashcroft taken necessary steps, etc.)

But again, I'm not looking to assign blame at all, beyond that needed to fix any problems revealed. But if one is upset about far-flung allegations and scenarios, such as Bush's alleged failure to invade Afghanistan before 9/11, then it seems to me one should be even more upset, proportionally, about the more realistic and damning contributions mentioned above.

Second, it seems clear to me this is not about needing sympathy or validation. As far as sympathy, any victim of 9/11 has deep sympathy from all of us. And we all remember the dignity with which Bush dealt with the victims, visiting them in private, in contrast with Hillary's failure, as their Senator, to do likewise.

No, those demanding a Bush apology seem exclusively focused the need to affix blame. And apparently, to primarily blame one person.

The second reason I am unmoved by Clarke's apology is that it was offered within his larger context of putting the blame on Bush; Clarke is thus only apologizing for being a small part of that scenario.

Poor Clarke. He did all he could to get Bush to listen to him. It wasn't enough, but he's still sorry.

This is about as noble as a guy who offers to buy drinks for everyone in the bar, pawns the bill off on his buddy, and then offers to cover his own drink.

If Clarke feels morally culpable for what went wrong, and wants to apologize for his own behavior, that's certainly his right. But if he has a need to lay blame on others, to a much greater degree, then I cannot understand his need to publicly blame Bush while failing to observe and equal, if not greater, culpability on the part of his former employer.

Unless of course he's got another motive entirely.

And, frankly, there's nothing noble about that at all, since, in that case, it means he's simply trading on the blood spilled on 9/11 for some other motive, be it personal gain, a need for attention, or tactical partisan goals.

Third, this demand for an apology tells us something about the media's biases. Late last week, I watched CNN for about a half-hour. During that short time, they repeatedly mentioned that Condoleeza Rice failed to apologize for 9/11.

This is interesting indeed, since reporters typically report things that do happen, not those which don't. Consider how odd a newcast would be if it summed up all the interesting things which didn't happen on a given day.

Such non-reports only inform us about the reporter's expectations and baises. In this case, it tells us that the reporter feels an apology should be forthcoming -- and thus that he considers Bush and Rice to have been primarily at fault, somehow, for 9/11. And that the reporter or network in question is incapable of reporting news without inserting their own opinions.

More cynically, if the reporter doesn't believe Bush is at fault, it at least implies he think you should think so. Whether you fall for such arguments is up to you to demonstrate.

In summary, there's nothing noble about Clarke's apology; there's nothing noble about saying you're just a little to blame, but someone else is mostly to blame.

And the unwillinginess shown by both Clarke and the media to follow the trail of blame where-ever it may lead, including outside the Bush administration and into the Clinton administration and John Kerry's own efforts to gut the CIA, clearly demonstrates their insincerity.

So this is not about fixing the problem. It's not even about laying blame squarely (as unproductive as I think that is).

It's about gaining control of our government.

And they have no compunctions about playing on sympathy for the dead of 9/11 in order to achieve that goal.