Clarke and Cheney Update

Josh Marshall has some key information on Cheney’s claim that Clarke was in cybersecurity, not anti-terrorism:

Cheney frequently gets a pass for what his aides later portray as unintentional misstatements of fact. But there are two or three levels of dishonesty involved in this response. The key one is timing. It’s convenient that Cheney doesn’t “recall the exact time frame” since the time frame puts the lie to his entire point.

Clarke was put in charge of cyberterrorism (a pet interest of his); but that was after 9/11.

Marshall also conducts a brief exercise in logic: 1) Clarke was in fact in charge of anti-terrorism before 9/11. 2) Clarke was in fact demoted. 3) Therefore, “saying Clarke was out of the loop is less a defense of the administration than an indictment of it.” Clarke’s demotion is nearly prima fasciae evidence that the administration demphasized terrorism before 9/11. I should have made that point earlier.

AB