The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

The Mystery Deepens

The White House is serving no public purpose by acting less interested than the rest of us in having this commission do its vital work. Its ham-handed behavior is also gravely damaging the entire concept of executive privilege.

House Republicans shut down yesterday an inquiry by Democrats into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its estimates of the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill.

At issue are allegations that then-Medicare administrator Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire his top actuary if he gave lawmakers his analyses showing that the costs would be higher than Bush administration officials were saying publicly.

Yesterday's conclusion of a Ways and Means Committee hearing all but ensured that two individuals central to the controversy - Scully and White House aide Doug Badger - will not testify before Congress.

Separately, the Health and Human Services Department is conducting an internal investigation into the matter, and Democratic lawmakers have requested civil and criminal probes.

Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee had asked Scully and Badger to answer questions about when President Bush and other top-ranking officials were told that internal estimates of the Medicare bill's cost were more than one-third higher than the $400 billion Bush had set aside, and why those analyses had not been shared with lawmakers.

But White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, in a letter to committee chairman Bill Thomas, a California Republican, noted "long-standing White House policy" against having White House staff testify before Congress as the reason that Badger would not appear.

And Scully, now a private consultant, said in a letter to Thomas that he was unable to appear before the committee because "unfortunately, for the past ten? days I have been traveling."

Committee Democrats rejected both explanations. In the case of Badger, they said that at least 45 high-ranking Clinton administration officials had testified before Congress; in the case of Scully, they offered to let him appear later. But Republicans squashed the Democrats' subpoena attempts.

Republican committee members accused the Democrats of trying to capitalize on the controversy, which erupted last month when Medicare actuary Richard S. Foster told reporters that Scully had threatened to fire him if he responded to Democratic requests for analyses of the pending legislation.

Thomas, the committee chairman, said that while he was willing to use "whatever tools are necessary to get to the bottom of a violation of law," he was not willing to issue subpoenas to Badger and Scully "to satisfy someone's whim or curiosity."

Clarke had a tremendous opportunity to be credible and do some good, but he let his and VIACOM's agenda blow that for him, don't blame me for the mistrust I have for him.

[size=25]'The Wizard of Oz Letter'[/size]
Bush pulls back the curtain on who really runs the White HouseWEB EXCLUSIVE
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek

Updated: 1:50 p.m. ET April 02, 2004April 2 - This was the week the curtain got pulled back on the Bush presidency. In exchange for allowing Condoleezza Rice to testify under oath, President Bush gets to bring along his vice president when he appears privately before the commission.

A top Republican strategist dubbed the legal document striking the unusual deal "the Wizard of Oz letter" because it strips away the myth that Bush is in charge. Until now, it's been all speculation about Vice President Cheney's influence. With the revelation of the tandem testimony, nobody with a straight face can deny Cheney is a co-president or worse, the puppeteer who pulls Bush's strings.

Aside from being fodder for the late-night comics, the arrangement confirms Bush's inability to articulate anything without a script--or a tutor by his side. There's a reason lawyers don't take testimony in groups. The whole idea is to get individual recollections and then compare stories to uncover contradictions. Try thinking about it this way: can anyone imagine Bush's father in a similar situation bringing his vice president? (For those who need a refresher course, the elder Bush was a rocket scientist compared to his son, and the vice president was Dan Quayle.)

Even President Reagan testified alone on the Iran-contra scandal. He didn't insist on having Vice President Bush sit beside him. Of course, Reagan couldn't remember much of anything. His faculties were failing as a result of Alzheimer's disease, which he later revealed. Still, Reagan permitted his testimony to be videotaped.

This is a defining moment in the Bush presidency because it reveals weakness at the top.

What Cheney and the tight circle around Bush are protecting is the myth they have created since 9/11 of a war president astride the world stage. Anybody who punctures that imagery is destroyed. Richard Clarke is only the latest in a series of insiders who have pulled back the curtain. At the center is an incurious president who is so inarticulate that he can't be left on his own to make a sustained argument on behalf of his policies without falling back on rehearsed talking points and sound bites.

The Democrats must be greatly tempted to lampoon Bush, but they should leave that to Jay Leno and Jon Stewart. John Kerry is smart to stay out of the way when it comes to the 9/11 commission. The Bush strategy is to muddy the picture, castigate Clarke as a disgruntled partisan, and portray his criticisms as nothing but politics. But Clarke's book is flying off the shelves, and his revelations will be followed later this month by a sequel to "Bush at War" from Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, which the White House is nervously anticipating.

Also due by the end of April is a memoir/expose by Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who angered the administration last year when he went public with his finding that Iraq had not sought uranium from Africa. Wilson's wife was then exposed as a CIA operative by columnist Robert Novak, who was acting on information provided by the administration. Wilson's book is titled, "The Politics of Truth." It could be subtitled: "What I Didn't Find in Africa."

Wilson praises Clarke for how he's handling himself in the media spotlight. "He's a ferocious bureaucrat," says Wilson, "and I mean that in the positive sense of the term. He learned to operate in that environment." When 9/11 commissioner Jim Thompson confronted Clarke on the gap between what he is saying now and the rosy briefings he gave while working the White House, Clarke explained that was politics. Wilson says an effective response would have been to point out to the many lawyers on the 9/11 commission that White House aides are paid to make the case for the president just as lawyers make the case for their client. "If you can't abide it, then you step away," says Wilson. "Clarke was in it for the long haul, to roll back Al Qaeda."

I think I've made myself clear on that in several posts.

Eleanor Clift is one of the most venomous partisan editorialists in America.

Clarke reveals more about himself than he does anyone else. The time to make this charge, and be credible, was when it was happening. Not when he had a book on the shelves. If he is telling the truth, he was a useless Yes Man in the Bush administration.

Sounds like he was pissed about being passed over for a plumb job, and wanted to cash in and exact revenge.

Sofia wrote:

Eleanor Clift is one of the most venomous partisan editorialists in America.

Hyperbolic and inaccurate.

(That title, BTW, belongs to Ann Coulter.)
I said 'one of', and her editorials prove it. She is in league with Ann, though she doesn't get Ann's press.

Sofia wrote:

Clarke reveals more about himself than he does anyone else. The time to make this charge, and be credible, was when it was happening. Not when he had a book on the shelves. If he is telling the truth, he was a useless Yes Man in the Bush administration.

"Yes" men are all Bush has in his administration.

Pray tell, where are the useful ones? :wink:
I gotta give you that one...sorta. :wink:

Sofia wrote:

Sounds like he was pissed about being passed over for a plumb job, and wanted to cash in and exact revenge.

Mere speculation of the smear variety, no different genetically than what we're hearing from every other Republican.
You're right. It is speculation. Just like everything else on this thread. Fits in nicely, yes?
And the smears just are not working. Checked the polls lately?
This one is still fluid. We'll see who will ultimately stand victorious atop this particular dungpile...
(Sure have missed you, dearie. Welcome back.)
Tank you, sweetie. I'll only be back for a very short while--hopefully, I will resume more frequent banter in a couple of months. I have really missed you and A2K.

Kickycan--
1. Money.
2. Money.
3. Revenge because he applied for a high level job, and was not hired.

When is the last time a negative tome was written about a President, and the author was jailed?