If a party wants to win, one has to get those votes.

Back in the day, everybody was raised with certain convictions and a member of one party. Quite blindly really. Now, most people are not members of a party anymore and are open to other parties than they voted for the last elections.

PING:
TITLE: Is the two party system permanently broken?
BLOG NAME: Dawnsblood
Joe Gandelman has an excellent essay up on his blog ‘The Moderate Voice”. It starts like this:Are independents voters the key to Democratic and Republican victories
in 2006 and perhaps 2008? Or have the two parties become so repugnant
to some…

PING:
TITLE: Is the two party system permanently broken?
BLOG NAME: Dawnsblood
Joe Gandelman has an excellent essay up on his blog ‘The Moderate Voice”. It starts like this:Are independents voters the key to Democratic and Republican victories
in 2006 and perhaps 2008? Or have the two parties become so repugnant
to some…

PING:
TITLE: Is the two party system permanently broken?
BLOG NAME: Dawnsblood
Joe Gandelman has an excellent essay up on his blog ‘The Moderate Voice”. It starts like this:Are independents voters the key to Democratic and Republican victories
in 2006 and perhaps 2008? Or have the two parties become so repugnant
to some…

PING:
TITLE: Is the two party system permanently broken?
BLOG NAME: Dawnsblood
Joe Gandelman has an excellent essay up on his blog ‘The Moderate Voice”. It starts like this:Are independents voters the key to Democratic and Republican victories
in 2006 and perhaps 2008? Or have the two parties become so repugnant
to some…

PING:
TITLE: Is the two party system permanently broken?
BLOG NAME: Dawnsblood
Joe Gandelman has an excellent essay up on his blog ‘The Moderate Voice”. It starts like this:Are independents voters the key to Democratic and Republican victories
in 2006 and perhaps 2008? Or have the two parties become so repugnant
to some…

Abolish political parties, that would be a solution instead of creating a new one like Unity ‘08 which is nothing more than a “name this politcal party with your cash donation” contest.

Instead be a true independant instead of running a smokescreen for a new politcal operation. By doing this the massive influx of cash corrupting the political system would be reduced. Because no party exsists to hide within a politicans arse would be fair game to ALL other politicans (accountability restored), instead of covered ala Delay’s by the GOP for so long. The politicans might finally carry out the will of their consituients if this all took place.

Get rid of the big 2 definately, create another to do it hell no! Ban them all!

Also, I haven’t read his book, but I do know that a lot of it concerns his reaction to the invasion of Iraq. I think he was disgruntled-no doubt about it, but decided that by staying he would gather material for the book, and then help the Democrats win in 2004 by publishing it right before the election.

Apparently it did cause a firestorm and was a bestseller, but as we all know now, it didn’t help Kerry enough to win, as Clarke believed it would. I do believe he might have been jockeying for a spot in the new administration as you proposed-that’s what makes sense. He knew the most about antiterrorism of anyone, and had been with four presidents. He would have been extremely useful as he wanted to concentrate on Al Queda and thought Iraq was a huge mistake.

Either way, I have little respect for him. If he did in fact think the Bush administration was so blind that they ignored the al Qaeda threat, he could be forgiven for staying on in his position through the summer of 2001 to try to rattle the cages. But then after 9/11…if the situation was as he now describes, then why would he still feel that he had loyalty to Bush?? He’s now trying to get us to believe that he knew all along that a major terrorist attack was imminent but the Bush administration ignored his warnings. Then the attack happens and 3000 American civilians die. So then what does he do? Defend Bush? What person with a shred of integrity would do that?

This is why that interpretation seems so implausible to me, and even if it is accurate it still impunes Clarke. But my opinion is that the second interpretation is more likely to be true: that he didn’t actually think that the Bush administration was ignoring the al Qaeda threat, but he did feel snubbed by them and gradually became more and more angry about that (and, possibly legitimately angered by the administration officials who wanted to make the case to go to war in Iraq)

This second interpretation also seems to fit with the personality traits described in the Sourcewatch article that BeMyGuest linked to above:

“Strong opinions are the norm when it comes to Dick Clarke,” state Washington Post reporters Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus. “A 30-year veteran bureaucrat, Clarke rose to the uppermost ranks of the national security establishment under presidents of both parties but also managed to anger numerous colleagues with his brusque style and bursts of temper. His previous boss, former national security adviser Samuel R. Berger, has said he regularly had to turn down demands from colleagues that Clarke be fired.

Thanks for doing all that research!

Anyway the source is Slate-Fred Kaplan’s article from 3-24-04 titled “Richard Clarke KOs the Bushies”.

Excerpt:

“At the hearing Clarke was asked by Republican James Thompson the following: ‘We have your book and we have your press briefing of August 2002. Which is true?’ He went on to add that none of the
book’s attacks on Bush can be found anywhere in the briefing.

Clarke calmly noted that in Aug 2002, he was a special assistant to President Bush. White House officials asked him to give a background briefing to the press to minimize the political damage of a Time cover story on Bush’s failure to take certain measures before 9/11. ‘ I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done and to play down the negative aspects. When one is a special assistant to the president, one is asked to do that sort of thing.’

Nervous laughter came from the crowd- or was it from the panel? The impression was clear: this is what I used to do and though he didn’t mention them explicitly- this is what Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley are doing now when they’re defending the president.”

From Wikipedia- “After Clarke appeared before the 9/11 Commission, his detractors attacked his credibility, suggesting that he exaggerated perceived failures in the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies while exculpating the former Clinton Admin. . .According to Knight-Ridder, the White House tried to discredit Clarke in a move described as ’shooting the messenger’. NYT columnist Paul Krugman was more blunt calling the attacks on Clarke character assasination.”

Not sure if I did the link correctly, LOL!

Meyer missed the point completely. Lamont and Chafee both ran against more conservative candidates who were supporting Bush. How does that translate into a loss for Democrats?

Congress is almost as unpopular as the president. Voting for Democrats, if you’re independent-minded, is a lousy way to protest.

Voting against the ruling party is a great way to protest. Independents, like everyone else, only get to choose among the candidates running. For most of the U.S., that means picking a Republican or a Democrat. I really have a hard time following his logic.

But his sworn testimony and what he wrote in his book after he was no longer entangled with them probably would bear more weight.

I DID find out the following -source Wikipedia-

“After Clarke appeared before the 9/11 Commission, his detractors attacked his credibility, suggesting that he exaggerated perceived failures in the Bush Administration’s counterterrorism policies while exculpating the former Clinton administration from its perceived shortcomings.

According to Knight-Ridder, the White House tried to discredit Clarke in a move described as “shooting the messenger”. New York Times columnist Paul Klugman was more blunt calling the attacks on Clarke character assasination”.

Which is probably why he decided to publish his book right before the 2004 election!

This is totally the opposite of what he said in 2004. I guess if he thought things were going well before 9/11 in Bush’s administration, it makes me wonder why he left. I haven’t read his book, but I plan to. Also doesn’t this contradict the testimony he gave to the 9/11 Commission? I read part of the report, and it appears to. Do you think he perjured himself then? Doesn’t make any sense to me.

Too bad no one has ever pinned him down on the discrepancies. Good catch.

But I’m only asking you to look at the facts of what Clarke said in 2002. That there was no comprehensive plan given by Clinton to Bush, only a list of strategies that had been under consideration (without decision to act on them) since ‘98. That the Bush administration did not reject these plans, but instead took them and began to create a comprehensive plan from them (even prior to the 9/11 attacks). That the budget for the covert activities involved was increased 5 fold. That the diplomatic process was begun to get Pakistan to distance itself from the Taliban.

The opinions may be slanted one way or another, but those are the facts. And yes, I did consider the source: Richard Clarke’s own mouth. At the very least, he’s to be criticized for not resigning sooner if he truly thought that the terrorist threat was not being taken seriously in 2001.

So please do read all the links.

And remember, you should always consider the source of your information.

Kim:
Click on all of the links that BeYourGuest has posted. Notice the huge difference in tenor between the 2002 interview and the 2004 one. In the 2002 briefing, Clarke explained that there was no comprehensive plan passed from the Clinton administration to Bush. Instead, there were strategies that had been discussed, strategies that had been on the table since 1998 but the Clinton administration hadn’t made decisions on how to act on these issues. Clarke is clearly saying that right from the start, the Bush administration decided to be more aggressive and comprehensive. The idea was to eliminate Al Qaeda, not just to react to it or “swat at flies”. Condi Rice has explained, for example, that a response to the Cole bombing was discussed repeatedly but it was decided that limited missile strikes in the past as responses to other al Qaeda attacks, only had the effect of emboldening OBL. So, the Bush administration wanted to take all information and ideas from the Clinton administration and put them into a comprehensive plan. This involved diplomacy with Pakistan and Uzbekistan, and increasing the funding for covert activities 5 fold. All of that was done prior to 9/11.

Clearly Clarke had a problem with the discussions of Iraq that took place right after 9/11, and I think he is somewhat justified in that (esp in regard to Wolfowitz and probably Rumsfeld as well..and then because of his blinders of loyalty, Bush would have been influenced by those two). But when it comes to the differences in approach to al Qaeda by the Bush administration compared to Clinton’s, Clarke was pointing out the strengths of Bush’s approach during the briefing in 2002. It was only later when he obviously became disgruntled, that his tune changed and he began stressing his call for an urgent meeting in Jan which didn’t take place until Sept.4. In the 2002 briefing, he explains all that was going on in the meantime, which was quite significant.

It seems pretty clear to me that Clarke had his ego bruised because Bush chose to have Tenet brief him instead of Clarke. From that, Clarke tries to paint a picture of an administration that wasn’t paying attention to the terrorism issue, because they weren’t paying as much attention to HIM personally.

I’m not that familiar with all of his inconsistencies, maybe you could fill me in. Because many of those in the Bush administration have lost credibility with me, also because of inconsistency, I tend to believe those whose accounts jive with others in the position to know- like Paul o’ Neill, or a non-partisan group like the Commission.

If Clarke and O’Neill were telling blatant lies, couldn’t they be sued for slander?

A partial transcript of Richard Clarke’s 60 MInutes interview is HERE.

SourceWatch on Richard Clarke HERE.

A Fox News interview, entitled “Clarke Praises Bush Team in ‘02″ is available HERE. You can read it for youself and decide just who he was praising in 2002.

If one looks at Richard Clarke’s account, Bush did literally nothing despite frequent warnings from Tenet. He never met with Clarke, the administrations expert on terrorism, until after 9/11, when he indicated he wanted to tie the attack in with Iraq.

Kim,
I pointed this out in another comment thread but since you are mentioning Clarke repeatedly, I’ll ask again…are you not at all troubled by Clarke’s inconsistencies and contradictions of his own statements? You say, “If one looks at Richard Clarke’s account”. Which account would that be…the one he was giving in interviews prior to the release of his book, or afterward?

Bush’s failures, especially in the 8 months preceding the attack, are mysteriously ignored or spun to look like strengths. If one looks at Richard Clarke’s account, Bush did literally nothing despite frequent warnings from Tenet. He never met with Clarke, the administrations expert on terrorism, until after 9/11, when he indicated he wanted to tie the attack in with Iraq.

Next, were these questions really new? Haven’t we been asking questions for 5 years? Wasn’t that a major portion of the 9/11 commission report? Was this supposed to be the focus the interview? Reports have come out that the interview was in fact supposed to be about the presidents Global Initiative, and when he got there he was ambushed with questions about what he may or may not have done 15 years ago.

I think that what also made Clinton angry is the fact that he has been facing this misinformation campaign for several months. Just last month there was an ABC feature with incorrect information about Clinton’s antiterrorism policies. If you were repeatedly accused of causing 9/11 what would your reaction be?

After failures by the current administration in Afghanistan and the debacle in Iraq they have changed strategies. Now they are saying it is all Clintons fault, and more broadly it is all the liberals fault. Despite controlling all three branches of government they still are blaming the democrats. And still everyday there are huge mistakes being made. If we can not take responsibility for our mistakes how can we correct them?

It is as if the enemy is not Al Qaeda at all, but instead it is the liberals. It is as if the threat of America being more liberal is more of a threat in the minds of conservatives then the actions of Al Qaeda.

But this ideology can not lead to the defeat of Al Qaeda. In order to win this war we will need both liberals and conservatives. Whoever the next president is, he must unify the country, or we will find the war on terrorism to be a very very very long war.

Lao Tzu who was an ancient Chinese Philosopher once said.

A Great Nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted, he corrects it.
He considers those that point out his mistakes as his most benevolent teacher.
He considers his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.

Thank you, I thought I was taking crazy pills. The right has been giving the middle, the middle finger for a long time, and the middle acts like if they vote Republican just one more time, those nutty guys will see the light and become more moderate.

I’m thinking probalby not at this point.