Flush twice... it's a long way to Sally Quinn's place!

Pundit Pap
For March 21, 2004
Have a Clarke Bar
By the Pundit Pap Team

March 21, 2004 - NEW YORK (apj.us) - The "must-see" political segment of the weekend won't air until sometime after 7PMEST tonight - but the pundit elite, with the notable exception of Tim Russert, made it their top issue this weekend.

The television event in question will be a segment on CBS' 60 Minutes in which Richard Clarke, former Senior Advisor for Counterterrorism on Bush's national security staff, blasts the Bush Regime for not only failing to take on the very real threat that Al Qaeda posed to the US but - when they did attack - trying to shift the blame to Saddam Hussein without proof or justification.

Naturally, the opinion elite were trying to spin this as a "political" problem for George Bush Jr. and his band of blatherers.

But here's the plain, unvarnished truth: the press almost seems to be acting to contain the fallout from Clarke's revelations by tagging the dilemma as "political." Clarke's allegations completely devastate the credibility, honesty and self-proclaimed integrity and "moral clarity" of the former Texas governors and his Neocon-Theocon Axis of Weasels.

The big political question is whether or not Democrats are prepared to hammer the fact that Team Bush were weak on terrorism from the moment they seized power - and dishonest on terrorism by ginning up a case for war against a sleazy despot who we are starting to realize was ripe for overthrow from any number of parties outside of PNAC (the Project for a New American Century).

Think about it. Clarke's assertions are more proof of a scandal over Bush's having dropped the ball on Al Qaeda - and then distracted the world from a real campaign against death-cult criminals with Operation Iraq's Oil, Baby! - that dwarfs Watergate and Iran-Contra.

Combined.

We urge you to not only follow this story carefully but talk it up, especially with fence-sitters.

Meanwhile, we caught two of the Sunday shows - here's what you (gladly) missed.

This Leak
George Stephanopoulos takes the Clarke allegations seriously
Players: Steph, Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Joe Biden (D-DE), ABC newsies Pierre Thomas and Terry Moran, resident opinion mavens George F. "F Will!" Will and Fareed Zakaria

Steph tried to frame the previous week as having been good for the Bush election campaign.

(Sure, George - it's been a great week despite the fact that the attacks against John Kerry from Herr Röve don't appear to be sticking. Not only that, but Democrats are fighting back against the disingenuous calls for Kerry to disclose the more leaders… um, er, "foreign" leaders - he's had contact with by demanding that Dick Cheney name the members of his secret energy panel and George W. Bush name the people in his administration who compromised the identity of superagent Valerie Plame.)

Immediately, Steph then brought up the matter of tonight's appearance on 60 Minutes by Clarke, who blasts His Fraudulence for having completely dropped the ball on national security. He is, it turns out, also an expert in the employ of ABC News.

Steph also emphasized a portion of Clarke's new book, "Against All Enemies" (on sale tomorrow) in which he describes a meeting between himself and Bush on September 12 at which Bush told Clarke to find any linkage between the previous day's attacks and Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Clarke indicated that Bush knew then the attacks were planned and executed by Al Qaeda - and didn't care, but instead wanted something, anything, no matter how trivial, to somehow tie Saddam Hussein to the attacks.

The first interview segment, with ABC News National Security reporter Pierre Thomas, was a little slanted at the get-go, with Thomas pitching the Bush Junta's claim that they did more about Al Qaeda than Clinton (even though that's completely untrue prior to September 11, 2001). Thomas did, however, sound very animated when he asked why some advisors for the administration seemed so eager to go after Iraq.

(Two words, Pierre: oil and geography.)

ABC reporter Terry Moran pitched the White House spin that the Clarke book is some kind of audition for the appointment of Clarke by Kerry to the new administration.

(If that is the case, Terry, we say make him National Security Advisor. We need a real one as opposed to that floundering amateur Condolleeza "Doctor Dolt" Rice.)

The next segment featured Sens. Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden, two Sunday morning veterans.

Hagel, who is not as conservative as some would make him out to be and one of the few voices in the GOP that conveys any semblance of equilibrium and sanity, was in a subdued, grave mood as he tried to explain the mess in the perspective of dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, and George rightly got back on track: what about the period leading up to September 11th? Hagel admitted outright that there are serious questions - and Biden followed up by reminding viewers that he had spoken about terrorism in a speech on Sept. 10th, and the Bush Cadre had already decided that only state-sponsored terrorism mattered to them. It's interesting that Hagel did not display the least amount of disagreement or annoyance as Biden spoke.

Fareed Zakaria said that Al Qaeda was informally sponsored by parties within Saudi Arabia with help from organizations in Afghanistan and Iraq - then savaged the administration for talking Iraq in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Biden then played his pet talking point: there's a huge gulf between "accommodation" of terror groups versus state "sponsorship" (with the corollary being that we have to wage a better "war" against both death cults and their moneyed backers).

George Will huffed that the new Clarke volume is "a seriously angry book by a seriously angry man." (So? That has nothing to do with the book's factual accuracy! It sounds as if he has every reason to be seriously angry - and so will voters when they hear his tale of Smirk's doctrine-driven hubris.)

The talking points were being tossed around like a March Madness basketball:

-- Zakaria tweaked PNAC's obsession with missile defense, China and Iraq

-- Hagel said that the Clinton Administration made it abundantly clear to the Bush
Administration that Al Qaeda was a threat - not in policy but factual terms - and Clarke is charging that the priority somehow "got lost" (that's not the impression we get, Chuck)

-- Biden said that Bush had been advised that Iraq would be a distraction and never got the job finished in Afghanistan - and also reminded viewers that he had pushed for sending more troops into Iraq and was met with GOP accusations that he wanted to "kill" American troops. Biden drove the point home: "If it takes us twenty damn years to get bin Laden" then do it - but that does not solve the immediate problem or defuse the immediate threat.

-- Zakaria said the question today is a loose-knit affiliation of small terrorist groups. Will said that Pat Moynihan was right when he said that we'd hate the end of the Cold War.

Then Steph played the Bush boy saying that everyone can agree it's a good thing that Saddam Hussein is no longer in charge of Iraq. (well, DUUUUUH, Monkey Boy! Tell us something we DON'T already know!) Steph then said that it looked as if there was a near-rapprochement between the US and both France and Spain - then the Madrid attacks of March 11 occurred. Hagel said that one of the dangers of using the Madrid example is division between the US and its traditional European allies. Biden said that Bush will be judged poorly by history for the opportunity squandered - and Europeans are NOT saying that if we ignore them, Al Qaeda will go away. Zakaria said that there's been an amazing misread of the Spanish elections (i.e. that it was a "win" for Osama bin Laden and his homicidal minions): the Spanish electorate turned on Aznar, he said, because Aznar kept trying to blame Basque separatist group ETA for the Madrid bombings when in fact Islamist killers did the deed.

Biden said he wants Bush to go to the UN and put a new entity in Iraq - but instead he's sticking by his already-failed plan.

Surprisingly, Joe Biden was dismissive about a proposal to ensure that elections would happen even in the face of a catastrophic attack. Will mentioned that elections took place during the US Civil War.

And Hagel, to our great delight, backed John McCain's assertion that Kerry is not weak on defense.

(This is one of the most important "talking points" of the week. Hagel and McCain are telling Karl Röve, Marc Racicot and Ed Gillespie pretty explicitly that defense will not be a winning issue for Republicans no matter what the national party and election campaign think. We predict that neither the party nor the campaign will take these not-so-implicit warnings seriously - at their expense.)

Biden concluded the segment by saying he wants Kerry to take a firm stand on where he stands and what exactly he will do on national defense.

(And that's the big cue for Kerry to pump up the volume - look for a major position speech within the next two weeks.)

--Jane Grice

Instant Meet the Press!
Kennedy to Russert: Stop interrupting me, little man!

Most weeks, we look forward to Meet the Press about as much as we look forward to a visit to the proctologist. This week, however, we knew we would be in for a treat: Tim Russert's first guest was one of the greatest politicians alive anywhere and a guy who can give it even better than he takes it, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy.

And Ted didn't disappoint - especially when, at one point, Tim rudely interrupted a point Ted was trying to make to inject a one-sided, GOP-honed talking point into the mix, as if Tim were an employee of Roger Ailes' FOX News propaganda operation. It seemed that Tim was trying to shout down Ted. So Sen. Kennedy laid the verbal Irish smackdown on the overweight callgirl, chiding the quite openly hostile pundit, telling him forcefully not to interrupt his answer.

Timmy backed off.

Rather than waste your valuable time, we now present Tim Russert's phony political punditry and Ted Kennedy's unflappable comebacks whittled down to a convenient three minutes - without the spin and with all the implied desperation of a GOP shill reinserted [and what we think was going through Ted's mind in brackets].

Timmy: Was the war worth it?
Sen. Kennedy: The day after 9/11, the world was united behind us; by going after Iraq, Bush thumbed his nose at the world, and we missed the opportunity to eradicate Al Qaeda.
Timmy: Bush tried to pitch the alternative of Saddam still being in power - the Democrats' way, he says, is Iraqi torture chambers!
Sen. Kennedy: [Put a sock in it, Tim, that's just plain contemptible!] Here's how real life works: unilateral foreign policy has fractured our alliance with the world community. We can't effectively fight terror. I'm glad Saddam's out of power. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, my brother had an emissary go to De Gaulle to explain the situation, and De Gaulle said the word of the US was enough. Today that would NEVER happen thanks to Bush. Iraq was a distraction to the central challenge to national security: Al Qaeda. Look at what happened in Spain and Poland. Look at the global demonstrations. We're isolated.
Timmy: So you're telling me that deposing Saddam was not worth the price.
Sen. Kennedy: Yes - and let's not forget the lies about intelligence.
Timmy: You said that Iraq was no imminent threat and was a politically constructed fraud.
Sen. Kennedy: It was. Rove pushed it. Paul O'Neill told the world about it in his new book. Andy Card talked about it as a sales campaign. Let's never forget what the GOP did to Max Cleland. "Mission accomplished," my butt.
Timmy: But, but, but - Turkey was in imminent danger!
Sen. Kennedy: [Who writes your material, Tim? Dennis Miller?] Remember all that talk about "mushroom clouds"? This was an ideologically-driven farce, and voters have had it. The same is true of the unfunded "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) mess and the Medicare fiasco.
Timmy: You say it's a fraud. Did 573 Americans give their lives for a fraud?
Sen. Kennedy: No. [Don't put words in my mouth, little man.] I've visited the Vietnam memorial, I've visited Gettysburg, and we honor the men and women who have lost their lives in the Armed Services. It is this president that misrepresented the facts on Iraq, just as they did with NCLB, Medicare, and the lack of jobs. People are sick of distortions and misrepresentations. [Damn, how I'd love to call that lying liar Bush a lying liar right now - but the word for the day cuts to the flavor of his dishonesty: "distortions."]
Timmy: What evidence do you have that the IMPEACHABLE offense of bribing was committed by the President?
Sen. Kennedy: You chose to use that word, Tim. [Putting words in my mouth again, little man? You're pathetic.] Turkey was PAID OFF. Period. I stand by the word "bribe" and I don't retreat from it.
Timmy: Kerry's not identifying ONE "more"… er, "foreign" leader he's talked with.
Sen. Kennedy: When will Dick Cheney, who whined about Kerry, give the name of one person from his energy policy task force? When will Bush name the person who compromised CIA operative Valerie Plame?
Timmy: Kerry MUST be held to a HIGHER STANDARD than the President himself!
Sen. Kennedy: [NBC News needs a laugh track.] Bush is not naming the treasonous people who compromised Plame, and Cheney is not making public his energy task force. The Plame matter was a violation of the law, Tim. Got that?
Timmy: But… but… but… Kerry is saying that soldiers think the President is reckless! Why, why, our troops say they support Bush!
Sen. Kennedy: You ought to read some letters from soldiers who died - they had no security, non-armored HumVees -- and DON'T INTERUPT ME, FAT BOY [ESPECIALLY when I'm talking about the honored dead, you rude little phony] - I'm talking about the FAILURE to provide armored HumVees and body armor in the period LEADING UP TO THE WAR. [Take that, you fat Smirk apologist - and the rest of your so-called "colleagues" who failed to report on this scandal.] Bush wanted to ram an $87 billion appropriation through Congress - the policy is in shambles, and we need new leadership. We would have had some real allies in Iraq instead of the laughable coalition we have now if Bush had been honest.
Timmy: You said Saddam had WMDs! You said Bush was right!
Sen. Kennedy: [What part of "We were lied to" don't you get, Tim?] He misled us -- about being greeted with flowers, about oil revenues paying for the rebuilding. That's why I voted against the $87 billion appropriation. What about Egypt and Iran using WMDs? What about North Korea's nukes? And what about the number one threat to the US: Al Qaeda?
Timmy: You were asked about the national intelligence estimate, and you say it was Congress' fault!
Sen. Kennedy: Tim, the administration distorted the facts about Iraq. Saddam had some programs, mostly moribund, and Bush is talking about mushroom clouds. Their message was "Nukes and Al Qaeda. Nukes and Al Qaeda. Nukes and Al Qaeda." And now Richard Clarke is telling the tale of the rush to bomb Saddam the day after 9/11 - and the plan to tie Al Qaeda to nukes. [A story that I had to bring up on your so-called news and politics discussion show, you fake.]
Timmy: So John Kerry was wrong to vote for war.
Sen. Kennedy: He's explained his position very clearly, Tim. [Please explain yours - do you get ALL your questions from Rove?]
Timmy: Here's an article from the Boston Herald.
Sen. Kennedy (laughing): They're incredibly biased against Kerry.
Timmy: They say Kerry said that you and Clinton are a problem. They say you blew a gasket!
Sen. Kennedy: This is one element of Bush-driven distortion. They say they'll fund NCLB, then fool people into thinking Medicare is getting better when in fact it lines the pockets of PhRMA clients. They flip-flop on jobs. And yes, now I wish I had voted for Souter and against Scalia.
Timmy: Kerry opposes a Constitutional amendment for gay marriage - but supports a state amendment against!
Sen. Kennedy: Our approaches are similar. This President wants discrimination and prejudice. Kerry supports civil unions - his position favors more rights for gay couples.
Timmy: Kerry said that NCLB is a mockery. Bush praised YOU for supporting NCLB.
Sen. Kennedy: The bill created funding and reform. We are leaving 4.5 million kids out of the legislation. We committed to voting rights and Medicare for all Americans eligible. There is no funding for NCLB. States don't have the money. This administration has FAILED.
Timmy: So you were used by the President.
Sen. Kennedy: The kids and their families were deceived.
Timmy: You're a liberal. Is John Kerry a liberal?
Sen. Kennedy: Kerry thinks labels are simplistic. We've gone from the biggest surpluses in US history to the biggest deficits. Bush says he's a conservative. Now do you call Bush a conservative?
Timmy: One survey says Kerry's the most liberal guy in America.
Sen. Kennedy: He's as liberal as Bush is a "compassionate" conservative!
Timmy (grumbling, rustling his notes): Do you regret never having been elected President?
Sen. Kennedy: I love being a Senator and I'm going to run for reelection.
Timmy: Here's Schwarzenegger gushing about Hatch's proposed Constitutional amendment to make US citizens of 20 years eligible for the Presidency? (We grabbed the airsickness bag as the video of Arnold rolled).
Sen. Kennedy (smiling): Arnold did a great job on your show,. He's a nice guy, married to a great lady.
Timmy: Will Kerry win?
Sen. Kennedy: Yes.

-- JJ Balzer