WTF Is It Now?!?

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White House tailspin
'A vicious barrage of personal attacks on a man with 30 years of public service under four Presidents.'

'The attacks reveal the vicious tactics this Administration uses to intimidate and threaten truth-tellers, but is so filled with inconsistencies, contradictions and lies that it actually bolsters Clarke's credibility. As Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, "This is a serious book written by a serious professional who's made serious charges, and the White House must respond to these charges" ? something that, despite the personal attacks, the White House has not yet done.'


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"I know you are, but what am I?"
'Part of a desperate attempt by the Bush team to pin the blame for 9/11 on the Clinton administration.'

'[T]he Bush team has gone to the well one too many times with this type of ad hominem attack. The American public has watched it happen to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson when he spoke out against the yellowcake claim, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill when he charged that the administration was putting too much focus on Iraq, and now Clarke. The pattern is clear: slime the opponent and wrap yourself in the American flag.'

"Well, he [Clarke] wasn't - he wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff." - Vice President Dick Cheney in a telephone interview with Rush Limbaugh, March 22, 2004.

This was meant to be a direct attack on Clarke from Vice President Cheney, although it actually reads more like an indictment of the Bush administration's method for doing business. Dick Clarke wasn't in the loop on many of the counter-terror discussions? The same Dick Clarke who had served under every president since Ronald Reagan and who at the time was the nation's head of cybersecurity concerns? That simply doesn't make any sense at all, and actually buttresses Clarke's assertion that the president and his handlers prefer to read and hear material that is favorable to their agenda. In fact, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan undercut Cheney's claim on the very same day during this exchange with a White House reporter:

QUESTION: Scott, the whole point of his book is he says that he did raise these concerns and he was not listened to by his superiors.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and that's just flat-out wrong.

Is McClellan suggesting that these superiors are also out of the loop? Just what constitutes "the loop" in the Bush White House? Is Karl Rove the first one-man loop in history?