Clarke's revelations elicit calls to action
posted by Rick at 11:15 PM

Richard Clarke's exposé--a triple whammy consisting of his book Against All Enemies, a blistering appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes, and his damning testimony before the 9/11 commission--is blowing the lid off the Bush League's attempt to cover up the dereliction of duty that first allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place, then delayed any effective response and substituted an attack on a country that the intelligence community knew had nothing to do with the attacks.

The White House response recalls the way the administration has handled other defectors like Paul O'Neill, Joseph Wilson, and Richard Foster--if you can't deny the message, kill the messenger. Condi Rice, who refuses to testify publicly or under oath before the 9/11 commission, hit the morning talk-show circuit in full stride to make ad hominem attacks on Clarke, and Dick Cheney called his buddy Rush Limbaugh to claim Clarke was "not in the loop" on counterterrorism.

Rice's and Cheney's claims are debunked point for point in a press release from the Center for American Progress--where, by the way, you can also read a review of Clarke's book by Robert O. Boorstin.

Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times, has also written an interesting summary of the Clarke affair titled "Lifting the Shroud."

Taking Action

This is it, friends. The evidence of incompetence, negligence, duplicity, and abuse of power has reached critical mass. The cracks in the Bush League's wall of secrecy are becoming gaping holes; the wall itself is ripe to come crashing down. It's time for the forces of reason to press the case. From now until November, we must continue to demand a full accounting, not only of the pre-9/11 failings, but of all the rest too: the railroading of the unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act; the lies and distortions that took us into Iraq; Cheney's clandestine meetings with Enron and their ilk that produced the White House energy plan; the deception concerning the cost of the administration's Medicare plan; and the countless other assaults on civil liberties, the environment, and the economy that have marked possibly the most dishonest White House in history.

Here are a few ways you can take action on this issue.

First, the Democratic National Committee is conducting a petition drive to demand a Congressional inquiry into this failure of leadership. It's free and it's easy. Just visit the site, give your name and address, and make your voice heard.

Second, MoveOn.org is urgently soliciting donations to fund an ad highlighting some of Richard Clarke's revelations. As MoveOn describes it, "the ad hinges on a direct quotation from Clarke: 'Frankly, I find it outrageous that a president is running for re-election on the grounds that he'd done such great things on terrorism. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11.'" This may be a first for the Bush League blog; soliciting money, even for good causes, is not something I usually do. However, this is important enough that I've decided to make an exception. Please do what you can to help. You can view a PDF storyboard of the ad, and make a donation to help get it on the air, at the MoveOn PAC website.

Finally, I'll make my own plug for a third way to take action: contact your local paper, TV and radio news editors, and advertisers who sponsor the news. Tell them you want to get both sides of the story. Tell them you will refuse to read papers, and tune out stations, that unquestioningly parrot Bush League pronouncements. And while you're at it, tell them to report less on the "horse race" and more on the issues. The process of choosing a president is not a sporting event staged for our amusement. It's serious business, with repercussions that will ripple through our lives and those of our grandchildren for years to come.

The trickle of revelations about the duplicity and cynicism of the Bush administration has become a stream. If the public demands it, the stream will become a flood, and the flood will sweep the Bush League out of office. Then the real work of healing America can begin.