Just out of curiosity, assuming that Sam Stone was correct when he posted:
shouldn’t this contest be pretty easy to win?
This is all making for very interesting reading. I’m not informed enough on the issue to contribute meaningfully, but I’m very happy to get informed by y’all.
Daniel
This is the entirety of the “detail” that I’ve been able to find:
Al Qaeda who? Oh and yes, better cooperation. That’ll fix it. Shame she forgot to actually do anything. Except, you know, actively prevent the sort of cooperation that Clark says happened in December 1999 with the prevention of two domestic attacks by Al Qaeda.
Sure, Desmo, but I’m just narrowly addressing the contest here, which can be won by finding a single instance of Rice mentioning Bin Laden. Which she did.
Daniel
Actually, I just went to the contest home page, and I see a wee little detail that elucidator left out. It’s not to find a mention of ObL or Al Qaeda before 9/11; it’s to find such a mention between 1/1/01 and 9/11/01. Rice’s speech, given in 2000, doesn’t qualify.
That seems reasonable to me, inasmuch as she didn’t give the speech while part of the administration. If we’re looking for evidence that the Administration cared about ObL, we oughtta see that they mentioned him while they had any power to do anything about him.
Daniel
If by “contest” you mean the one that elucidator linked to, it actually says:
Just as stated, I did, in fact, forget to mention the time frame imposed.
As pointed out by the much esteemed Talking Points Memo, without which no citizen can hope to be informed,
from yesterday’s Crossfire
and further insight from the delightfully equine Ms Anne (Anne of Green Goebbels) Coulter, purveying more of her splendidly effective verbal ipecac…
How low will they go? Whatta ya got?
No problem–I was just confused at first.
How low can Coulter go? Surely this is limited only by her imagination and the libel laws. But thanks, I’m not sure I’d ever read a complete one of her columns before. I’m going to go soak my brain in bleah now.
(That was supposed to say “bleach,” but I figured I’d leave the Freudian typo intact)
Daniel
What is she talking about?
Clarke’s a died-in-the-wool, right-wing, conservative hawk. He voted for McCain in the Republican primaries in 2000, fer cryin out loud.
Really, the animal doctor should just put her out of her (and our) misery.
I suspect that Coulter calls him a liberal because she can’t quite get away with calling him a Commie.
At this point, being surprised at her mendacity is like being shocked at Howard Stern’s crudeness. Why is anyone shocked at it?
Like I say: if you’re still outraged, you’ve not been paying attention for very long.
Daniel
Coulter. Pfft. Kid stuff.
Who needs Condi when you have both houses of Congress at your disposal?
BTW at first blush Frist’s actions make all this hoo-hah about the White House’s claims to constitutionally separated this and national security that just so much fucking horseshit.
I’m just wondering if the Administration’s continued demonization of Richard Clarke is going to backfire on them – e.g., are they going to end up pissing off even more less-than-zealous conservatives, who end up getting disgusted at watching a lifelong Republican like Richard Clarke get reamed for daring to speak up?
I don’t understand this at all. Why didn’t Frist use normal channels and leak the documents to Robert Novak? 
Huh. Frist actually makes me wonder: I’m under the impression that he’s one of the noble opposition, one of the Republicans that, like John McCain or Richard Clarke, is respectable and honest even when putting forth policies I find deeply wrong. Is my impression wrong, or is he not really playing politics, or what’s going on here?
Daniel
Yes, your impression is wrong. Frist is a hand-picked Bush bootlicker. The Rove machine topedoed Trent Lott to give Frist his job. I’m a Tennessean, and I’m ashamed to have Frist as my Senator. I vote against him every chance I get, and my constituent emails to him would curl your hair. In short, he sucks.
But on this issue, I agree with him. Let’s declassify Clarke’s testimony. In fact, let’s declassify all of the secret testimony regarding terrorism and the Iraq war. Let’s put all the cards out on the table for everyone to see, including all of the lies that the Congress was told about the immenet threat from Iraq. Obviously, the White House’s warnings about “this classified information is vital to national security” were so much horse shit, since they can so blithely change their minds about the subject for political gain. Call their bluff–let’s see it all. And while we’re at it, let’s see Cheny’s notes from the energy commission meetings so we can avoid impunging Justice Scalia’s good name any more. The American people deserve to see all of this information so we can decide for ourselves who is lying and who is telling the truth. Drag it all out there, and then let slip the dogs of impeachment!
Pretty funny.
I’m wondering that myself.
Are they going to take a few inconsistencies and blow a bunch of their hot air into them and turn them into perjury?
I think the GOP leadership has really turned a corner here.
As regards Mr. Frist’s campaign for candor and full disclosure…
A sharp-eyed correspondent over at Eschaton/Atrios brings forth two rather interesting links
and
They tell the same story, save that one has omitted a paragraph with some…rather odd…implications:
“…Frist disclosed the effort to declassify Clarke’s testimony in remarks on the Senate floor, then talked with reporter. He said he personally didn’t know whether there were any discrepancies between Clarke’s two appearances…”
We are given to understand that Mr. Frist’s eagerness to have this declassified and brought before the public is not motivated by Mr. Frist’s personal knowledge, or that he harbors any opinion as to whether or not it would be helpful to the WH’s case. It is possible, one must suppose, that it would be quite the opposite, but Mr. Frist is proceeding anyway, damn the torpedoes, bring on the candor and openess.
Hmmmmmmm.
They don’t care - not with the hot fires of retribution in their souls and a campaign to run.
It’s an embarassment, really, and in the end the administration is going to have more to answer for than Clarke will.
All the Bush Administration have to do is say something, “There are times in which we messed up. 9/11 was one of those times. However, we are undertaking steps to see to it that such an act won’t happen again.”, and the 9/11 panel would finish quietly.
Now, with the second time they are bullying a former government employee with such a blistering attack they are doing, a conservative hawk at that, the administration left themselves vulnerable to an even more devastating broadside than that from Richard Clarke.
Just wait until Cheney is called an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the Enron scandal, based on his many meetings with Kenny Lay concerning with forming an Enron-friendly energy policy. That’s when it will really hit the fan.
From your lips to God’s ear, Cap, but I doubt it. Over and over again, the Bushiviks have been shown to be fully mendacious. Is there anyone, anywhere who doubts that the Pubbies are the bestest buddies ever for Big Business moguls? You have been around the SDMB block a while, you know that the loyalty of the Usual Suspects surpasseth all understanding. Nothing short of GeeDubya’s being caught in bed with a dead woman or a live Boy Scout will cause the trajectory of the shit to intersect the locus of the fan.