The Poet's Eye
commentary by Lightning Rod
The Poets' Eye is skeptical without being cynical, innocent without being naive and critical without being judgemental.
American Bandstand03-29-04
It seems that Dick Clarke has been the darling of the media this week. Since his appearence on Sixty Minutes, the release of his book, his testimony before the 9/11 Commission and his solo visit with Tim Russert on Meet the Press and countless replays on news programs, he has become a household word.
The former terrorism czar to four presidents is obviously a man with great verbal aplomb and is without doubt a consummate bureaucrat. You can see why he survived through the administrations of opposite parties. He is convincing and believable and of course a nightmare for Bushco. That's why they are devoting so much attention to the campaign of slander and defamation designed to take out this formidable critic. Not only are they employing the obvious arguments from "he is a whore trying to sell a book" to "he is a disgruntled former employee," they are also publishing his past emails and talking about declassifying his previous testimony before Congressional committees for the purpose of charging him with perjury
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The Poet's Eye casts a jaundiced look on the whole exercise of the 9/11 Commission. Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda is not a productive game. It is fairly well established that the culprits are (1) dead and (2) were supported both financially and ideologically by bin Laden and his 'organization.' Recriminations directed toward the Clinton or the Bush administrations are useless at this point in determining what the best course of action should be to discourage terrorism.
Mr. Clarke's point is not that the Bush or the Clinton administrations were asleep at the wheel concerning the 9/11 attacks, it is that the so called 'war on terror' was not served by our incursion into Iraq. Since Busco is so married to the Iraqi adventure for commercial reasons, they are loathe to suffer this revelatory type of criticism. So they attack the irritant.
Richard Clarke is to be commended for his unblinking and calm disclosure of procedures relating to 9/11, at considerable peril to his career. The Bushies feel besieged by this inside revelation and are predictably striking out since their whole game is based on slick PR. Clarke has clearly pronounced that the Emperor has no clothes and the Emperor's ministers are in a frenzy to put duct tape over his mouth.
Of all the useless activities of government, commissions are among the champions. The 9/11 Commission is about as useful as the Warren Commission that studied the assassination of President Kennedy. But this is how the bureaucratic mind works. They think that if they establish a commission to study something that has already happened and then return with findings that say 'yes, it happened,' that somehow it will look like they are earning their money.
The Poet's Eye sees that short of bombing Mecca that the 'war on terror' will go on indefinitely and that the 9/11 Commission is only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to money and energy we will waste in this useless pursuit.
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