The frustrating thing about Richard Clarke's revelations (if that's the correct word) on 60 Minutes tonight is that they will not, for the most part, be debated by folks with an eagerness to get at the truth. The Democrats will declare that Clarke's the man, he knows, that's how it was, Bush ignored warnings about terrorism before 9/11 and then after, tried hard to believe that Iraq should be attacked in retaliation. The Republicans will insist that Bush was focused; that Clarke's a disgruntled and/or partisan has-been who's saying "I told you so" when he didn't really tell them so. Somewhere between those extremes there's an interesting discussion and perhaps some truth but we'll never get near it, at least not this year. The debate will get drowned out by those eager to spin this to help their guy in the coming election.
I am inclined to believe Clarke's claim that the Bush administration wrongly — and this may be one of the largest, most deadly errors any White House has ever made — believed in an al-Qaeda/Iraq link despite a pile of intelligence reports to the contrary. I believe this part because Bush and his top officials once said there was a link and they now seem to arguing they never said it. (This morning on Face the Nation, Senator Arlen Specter insisted, "The Bush administration never made any claim that there was a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda." He actually said that…and it was kind of surreal. Senator Specter had some sort of accident and his lip was all swollen and red as he appeared on the program. It looked like someone had worked him over to get him to say what they wanted him to say.)
I am also inclined to believe Clarke's claim that fighting terrorism was downgraded from the Clinton to the Bush administrations — fewer meetings, less attention, etc. — because we've heard the charge before and if untrue, it could so easily be disproved. Perhaps it will be.
Beyond that, it's hard to say from afar how much of Clarke we should accept. I'd love to hear someone non-partisan bat some of the other allegations around but like I said, this won't be about getting at the truth. It'll be about selling or assaulting the image of George W. Bush as a strong battler of terrorists. That's pretty much what this election is going to come down to.