WH responsible for timing of Clarke's book - hoped for after 9/11 Commissn

[scottxyz]

Many uninformed right-wing bloggers have accused Clarke of trying to play politics by "timing" his book to be released during the presidential campaign.

This is wrong for two reasons: The book was delayed by the White House - and they were probably trying to delay it till AFTER the 9/11 Commission finished (but then it got its extension):


(1) Clarke has explained that his book was ready to be released in Nov 2003, but publication was held up to give the White House time to "vet" the book:

Conason: Why did you write the book now? That's a question they raise. Did it occur to you that this would be an election year and it would be especially controversial because of that, and that these commission hearings were coming up?

Clarke: I wanted the book to come out much earlier, but the White House has a policy of reviewing the text of all books written by former White House personnel -- to review them for security reasons. And they actually took a very long time to do that. This book could have come out much earlier. It's the White House that decided when it would be published, not me. I turned it in toward the end of last year, and even though there was nothing in it that was not already obviously unclassified, they took a very, very long time.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/24/clarke/
(You need a free "day pass" to view this link.)

= = =

(2) There is another interesting aspect to the timing of Clarke's book:

"Regarding the 3-5 months that the Bush Administration held up Clarke's Book: They hoped to delay its release until after the the original 9/11 commission deadline, May 26. The extension to July was too long a time to hold it up any longer and the release became imminent. They must have forgot about this weeks testimony or hoped that logistics would further delay the publication."

posted by "ROGNM" in Comments at BillMon's "Whiskey Bar" blog:
http://billmon.org/archives/001266.html#comments

[Kool Kitty]

1. They seem to have out-smarted themselves.

How sad. ;-)

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. 
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html|Click
here] to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dr Fate]

5. I would hope he would release it in an election year...

I could really care less about the timing.

At least he went under oath and stated his case.

Bush & Rice refuse to go under oath for some reason.

[Bridget Burke]

6. So, who's the best defender of our way of life?

(Just checked your profile.)

The one who let 3000 people die on American soil? The one who started a war on a lie & joked about the lie?

The release of the book was delayed by the White House. They did it badly, of course.

And what's the source of that poorly formatted clip?

[snippy]

7. Those are the most ignorant lies I have ever read. Dubya? Is that you?

[Spazito]

8. ROFLMAO!

nice try tho!

[tishaLA]

10. wild_ivan....

on your sig line it says "vote for the man you think the terrorists fear most"...and you know Al Qaeda has backed chimpy already, right?

[snippy]

11. Bush is Al Qaeda's chief recruiting officer. No one in the world needs

terrorists more than Bush.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

4. correct! the WH had control of the books release date...they had it in Nov

[wabeewoman]

9. Another red herring!

Would the WH be complaining about the timing if the book had been favorable to bush? I don't think so...