Federal Review regular Martin sends the following, via e-mail:
Let me clarify something on the publishing date. White house lawyers reviewed the book to make sure no classified data was included. I think you would agree that this should be done no matter who the author is or who is in the White House. The book was supposed to be released on April 27 and was moved up. See the following site.I hope the commentors actually address the substantive points of this post. It's one thing to praise someone, like Zell Miller on Kerry, and then later deciding to support another candidate, it's something else entirely to completely reimagine events when it is time market your book.
I had an interesting conversation last night with an old girl friend who is Director of Publicity for a New York publisher. She has helped make two books #1 on the NY times best seller list this year. Earlier in her career she was Tom Clancy's publicist. By the way, she is a liberal democrat. I asked her if she thought the book release date was moved up, for marketing purposes, to coincide with the 911 commission hearings. She said "hell I don't think, I know it was." See , she used to work for Clarke's publicist and they talked about what a marketing coup it was.
Now, before your collective liberal knees jerk so hard they break your jaws, I have no problem with the release date being moved up. It makes good business sense. So relax. What I do have a problem with is that it appears to me, based on the accusations I've heard from the book, is that the content was fabricated to sell books. Who wants to read a book about anything good in D.C. be it during the Clinton or Bush administration? Scandal sells.
Will the real Dick Clarke please stand up. These comments are from Aug 2002, 5 months before Clarke resigned. Enjoy.
RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.
So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.
Over the course of the summer, they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance
And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.
QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the — general animus against the foreign policy?
CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against uh the previous team to me
JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?
CLARKE: All of that's correct.
ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?
CLARKE: You got it. That's right
CLARKE: No, it came up in April and it was approved in principle and then went through the summer. And you know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD from one of rollback to one of elimination.
QUESTION: Well can you clarify something? I've been told that he gave that direction at the end of May. Is that not correct?
CLARKE: No, it was March
