The Gamut

Yahoo! News - White House Rebuts Ex-Bush Adviser Claim

The White House, fuming over a former aide's charge that President Bush gave short-shrift attention to al-Qaida while obsessing over Saddam Hussein, branded the fighting-terrorism flap as "Dick Clarke's American Grandstand."

"When you compare Dick Clarke's current rhetoric with his past comments and actions, the bedrock of his assertions comes crumbling down," said chief presidential spokesman Scott McClellan. He called Clarke's new book, criticizing the administration's handling of the post-Sept. 11 terrorism environment, "more about politics and book promotions than it is about policies."

The grandstand comment is funny, but not as funny as the administration's desperation.

Now we have two former whitehouse insiders independently making the same exact charge. And it's a charge that seems perfectly reasonable given all that we know about these people and the neo-con agenda. How could anybody not know that this is the truth?

One thing that I think deserves to be noted. This is the best title for this book that there could possibly have been. In the oath of office, the president promises to defend the US and the constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Clarke's primary charge here is that Bush failed to even see the al Qaeda threat as a threat, let alone to defend us from it. And here the guy is running on the idea that he has been a great protector of the American people.

Grandstanding or not, in my house last night, Dick Clark hosted the new cheers rockin' eve.

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