Dick Clarke

I've been avoiding posting about the Clarke testimony at the 9-11 hearings for two reasons. First, I've been too damned busy to keep up with it all, and I'm not in the habit of posting bits and pieces of anything. Second, I'm still not sure what effect, if any, this will have on the upcoming elections or the Bush administration as a whole. Call me a skeptic, but even if everything Clarke says is true (and I personally believe it is), the media will spin it into oblivion and, worse, the public won't care.

But I have been keeping a half-eye on the media reaction to it, mainly through CNN, the occasional random political blog I click on, and Talking Points Memo. The later had a link to this story by Fred Kaplan which, although somewhat reactionary, presents a pretty even analysis on the direct effect Clarke's testimony had on the 9-11 hearings. It's somewhat fanciful when it comes to the eventual political fallout from this, because I don't think he's taking into account the passivity of the American public, but in the political arena itself, I see this is a probable outcome.