Just saw Richard Clarke on 60 Minutes. Very, very damning. I'm sure AWOL's apologists will find something to say, but Clarke comes across as authoritative and honest -- and also, not particularly partisan. The only hatchet thrown, from my recollection, was from an anonymous WH official, who intimated that Clarke wants an admin job with Kerry.

Bush is sitting on a one-legged stool. If you take away his authority on terrorism, this election is over.

...of course, Drudge would have an oppo link on Clarke. Apparently, he's an incompetent. Repeat after me: Attack the messenger, not the message. Attack the messenger, not the message. Attack the messenger, not the message.

In happier times prior to 9/11, Clarke -- as Bill Clinton's counter-terror point man in the National Security Council -- devoted great effort to convincing national movers and shakers that cyberattack was the coming thing. While ostensibly involved in preparations for bioterrorism and trying to sound alarms about Osama bin Laden, Clarke was most often seen in the news predicting ways in which electronic attacks were going to change everything and rewrite the calculus of conflict.

September 11 spoiled the fun, though, and electronic attack was shoved onto the back-burner in favor of special operations men calling in B-52 precision air strikes on Taliban losers. One-hundred fifty-thousand U.S. soldiers on station outside Iraq make it perfectly clear that cyberspace is only a trivial distraction

...This guy, George Smith, is no Clarke lover. He's had it in for Clarke since at least December 2000, according to this page (scroll down). Exactly what he's claiming Clarke failed to do is unclear, but Smith appears not to be a GOP Hack -- he's just being used.