WE NOW know how Campaign 2004 will unfold: A Democrat will accuse President Bush of having started the Chicago fire, or poisoning Halloween candy, or whatever. The news media will trumpet the charges, no matter how preposterous. When Bush aides deny the charges, and provide evidence refuting them, journalists will accuse Mr. Bush of making "personal attacks."
Exhibit A for this pattern is the sordid saga of Richard Clarke, arguably the least credible whistleblower in American history. The counterterrorism chief in the Clinton administration, who was held over by Mr. Bush, charged in testimony before the 9/11 commission that Mr. Bush wasn't much concerned about waging war on terror before Sept. 11, and then tried to bully Mr. Clarke into falsely fingering Iraq for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Mr. Clarke's testimony is refuted not only by every other national security official who was around Mr. Bush during the period in question, but by Mr. Clarke himself, in a background briefing he gave reporters on Aug. 4, 2002; in interviews he gave to author Richard Miniter, PBS, and the New Yorker magazine; in an e-mail he sent to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Sept. 15, 2001, and even by what he wrote in his own book.
In his August 2002 briefing, Mr. Clarke told reporters (1) that the Clinton administration had no overall plan on al-Qaeda to pass on to the Bush Administration; (2) that just days after his inauguration, Mr. Bush said he wanted a new, more comprehensive anti-terror strategy; (3) that Mr. Bush ordered implementation of anti-terror measures that had been kicking around since 1998, and (4) that before Sept. 11, Mr. Bush had increased fivefold the funding for CIA covert action programs against al-Qaeda.
In the Sept. 15, 2001, memo, Mr. Clarke reminded Ms. Rice that in July, the White House ordered a message (written by Mr. Clarke) sent to domestic agencies warning them to prepare for the possibility of a "spectacular al-Qaeda attack." He listed a number of meetings in June and July in which the FBI, Secret Service, Customs, etc. were urged to take special measures to increase security.
It's reasonable enough to argue that Mr. Bush could have done more to guard against terror, though it isn't clear what. What is incredible is to argue - as Mr. Clarke did before the 9/11 Commission - that President Clinton was more concerned about al-Qaeda than Mr. Bush was.
Mr. Clarke told the commission that Mr. Clinton "had no higher priority" than terrorism. But not even Mr. Clarke believes this. In his book, Mr. Clarke said that trying to obtain a Middle East peace agreement was more important to Mr. Clinton than retaliating for the attack on the USS Cole.
Commissioner James Thompson asked Mr. Clarke which was true: what he said in the August 2002 briefing, or what he said in his book. "Both," Mr. Clarke replied. But it's not possible to reconcile the two. It's difficult even to reconcile what Mr. Clarke said in his book with the embellishments he's made in television interviews, said Time magazine's Romesh Ratnesar.
Mr. Clarke has credibility problems which make those of Mr. Clinton and Richard Nixon seem mild by comparison. But it's hard to find a hint of this in the "mainstream" media. In a lengthy "analysis" piece ("Insider Clarke weathers his critics"), Mark Matthews and Tom Bowman of the Baltimore Sun somehow fail to mention at all that what Mr. Clarke is saying now contradicts what he said before. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post ("Clarke stays cool as partisanship heats up") does mention the August, 2002, interview, but only to criticize the White House for permitting Fox News to make public a transcript of it.
The news media sometimes go to ludicrous lengths to blame Mr. Bush for the sins of his predecessor. A story on the MSNBC Web site March 24 took Mr. Bush to task for not having acted against al-Qaeda in 1998, when Mr. Bush was governor of Texas.
Americans already have plenty of reasons to distrust the "news" they are being given. They'll have plenty more before November.
First Published March 27, 2004, 10:37 a.m.