khaosworks | More Clarke snippets

Oh, man, you guys have to read this. Your brain will explode just trying to imagine trying to get anything through this amount of bureaucratic molasses.

It starts with Jim Thompson trying to get the Bushies off the hook by saying that they did implement some policy decisions about terrorism before 9/11:

THOMPSON: Well, OK, 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. Did they authorize the increase in funding five-fold?

CLARKE: Authorized but not appropriated.

THOMPSON: Well, but the Congress appropriates, don't they, Mr. Clarke?

CLARKE: Well, within the executive branch, there are two steps as well. In the executive branch, there's the policy process which you can compare to authorization, which is to say we would like to spend this amount of money for this program. And then there is the second step, the budgetary step, which is to find the offsets. And that had not been done. In fact, it wasn't done until after September 11th.

Score one for Clarke. The principals did decide on a policy change, but they dragged their feet and didn't get take the necessary steps to put it in the right form to present to Congress - and it wasn't done before 9/11. But Thompson won't let go - he tries again, to get an admission that, yeah, but the timing aside, there was some policy movement:

THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Pakistan, was the policy on Pakistan changed?

CLARKE: Yes, sir it was.

THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Uzbekistan, was it changed?

CLARKE: Yes, sir.

THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance, was that changed?

CLARKE: Well, let me back up. I said yes to the last two answers. It was changed only after September 11th. It had gone through an approvals process. It was going through an approvals process with the deputies committee. And they had approved it -- The deputies had approved those policy changes. It had then gone to a principals committee for approval, and that occurred on September 4th. Those three things which you mentioned were approved by the principals. They were not approved by the president, and therefore the final approval hadn't occurred until after September 11th.

Thompson 0, Clarke 2. Primarily because Thompson is curving a different way, but it's still winding up in the same spot, so Clarke can deflect it just the same way as the first pitch. Again, Thompson just won't quit - you got to admire his persistence - so he tries another angle, trying to drive home the point that okay, maybe it wasn't approved, but there was some movement, right? Let's take a swing at it.

THOMPSON: But they were approved by people in the administration below the level of the president, moving toward the president. Is that correct?

CLARKE: Yes, so over the course of many, many months, they went through several committee meetings at the sub-Cabinet level. And then there was a hiatus. And then they went to finally on September 4th, a week before the attacks, they went to the principals for their approval. Of course, the final approval by the president didn't take place until after the attacks.

THOMPSON: Well is that eight-month period unusual?

CLARKE: It is unusual when you are being told every day that there is an urgent threat.

Ow. Burn. Clarke 3. Thompson gives up, and now tries to say, okay - there was a lot of delay, but surely that was because the process needed a lot of people involved, so it's complicated, and no one can blame anyone for the slowness. Right?

THOMPSON: Well, but the policy involved changing, for example, the policy on Pakistan, right? So you would have to involve those people in the administration who had charge of the Pakistani policy, would you not?

CLARKE: The secretary of state has, as a member of the principals committee, that kind of authority over all foreign policy issues.

Strike One.

THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance, that would have been DOD?

CLARKE: No. Governor, that would have been the CIA. But again, all of the right people to make those kinds of changes were represented by the five or six people on the principals committee.

Strike Two.

THOMPSON: But they were also represented on the smaller group, were they not, the deputies committee?

CLARKE: But they didn't have the authority to approve it. They only had the authority to recommend it further up the process.

Strike Three. Now here's the next question and answer that completely blew my mind. This is how Washington works. This is why the Bill in "I'm Just A Bill," was near suicidal waiting in line to be approved.

THOMPSON: Well, is policy usually made at the level of the principals committee before it comes up?

CLARKE: Policy usually originates in working groups. Recommendations and differences then are floated up from working groups to the deputies committee. If there are differences there, policy recommendations and differences are then floated up to the principals. And occasionally, when there is not a consensus at the principals level, policy recommendations and options, or differences, go to the president. And the president makes these kinds of decisions. By law, in fact, many of the kinds of decisions you're talking about can only be made by the president.

Holy fuck. This was what Clarke was up against. He wanted to give direct briefings to the President to impress on him the urgency of having to deal with Al-Qaeda, and he was told he had to wade through this shit. Pretty much he was being told that he was nuts - hey, this group has only killed like 35 Americans over the last 8 years, why are you making a big deal out of it? Of course, a large proportion of this is hindsight, but come on... at least implement the frickin' roll-backs he was trying to propose short of actual war.

Thompson came back later in the testimony, this time doing the time honored Republican mode of questioning - attacking Clarke's credibility. This is where Clarke wiped the floor with Thompson. Blood on the floor, here. Thompson comes in guns blazing:

THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, in this background briefing, as Senator Kerrey has now described it, for the press in August of 2002, you intended to mislead the press, did you not?

CLARKE: No. I think there is a very fine line that anyone who's been in the White House, in any administration, can tell you about. And that is when you are special assistant to the president and you're asked to explain something that is potentially embarrassing to the administration, because the administration didn't do enough or didn't do it in a timely manner and is taking political heat for it, as was the case there, you have a choice. Actually, I think you have three choices. You can resign rather than do it. I chose not to do that. Second choice is...

Nope! Can't let Clarke finish talking! He might make sense! Quick, let's get down to his bitter resignation.

THOMPSON: Why was that, Mr. Clarke? You finally resigned because you were frustrated.

CLARKE: I was, at that time, at the request of the president, preparing a national strategy to defend America's cyberspace, something which I thought then and think now is vitally important. I thought that completing that strategy was a lot more important than whether or not I had to provide emphasis in one place or other while discussing the facts on this particular news story. The second choice one has, Governor, is whether or not to say things that are untruthful. And no one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them. In any event, the third choice that one has is to put the best face you can for the administration on the facts as they were, and that is what I did. I think that is what most people in the White House in any administration do when they're asked to explain something that is embarrassing to the administration.

Ooo, that was definitely a double. As Thompson starts sweating, he goes back to his earlier style of pitching - maybe this'll throw him.

THOMPSON: But you will admit that what you said in August of 2002 is inconsistent with what you say in your book?

CLARKE: No, I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think, as I said in your last round of questioning, Governor, that it's really a matter here of emphasis and tone. I mean, what you're suggesting, perhaps, is that as special assistant to the president of the United States when asked to give a press backgrounder I should spend my time in that press backgrounder criticizing him. I think that's somewhat of an unrealistic thing to expect.

Thompson watches the ball sail over his head and across the fence for a home run. He tries to recover before he gets yanked out of the game, this time reduced to a churlish grumble about double standards which of course makes him look either naive or hypocritical.

THOMPSON: Well, what it suggests to me is that there is one standard of candor and morality for White House special assistants and another standard of candor and morality for the rest of America.

CLARKE: I don't get that.

CLARKE: I don't think it's a question of morality at all. I think it's a question of politics.

THOMPSON: Well, I... (APPLAUSE)

THOMPSON: I'm not a Washington insider. I've never been a special assistant in the White House. I'm from the Midwest. So I think I'll leave it there.

And the crowd has spoken. I loved the applause, and the look on Thompson's face. Priceless.

Really. You all should try to watch this if you can. I wish I could burn the stream to CD-ROM and pass it around.