>So I think the American people have this one right. Don't play blame games
>for 911 itself-- have a real debate about what we should have done and need
>to do now to protect Americans from terrorism in the future.
So how can you disentangle "blame" or at least responsibility for 9/11 from the "real debate" you talk about? Clarke's point is that the Bushies were so obsessed with Iraq as to ignore the threat of Al Queda. That point is clearly right--Rice in her testimony as much as admitted that in any number of ways, but especially when she said that it wasn't until the 34th meeting of the National Security prinicpals that AQ and terrorism were on the table. (And Iraq, as we know, was on the table in the very first meeting.) Even if you don't believe there was a "magic bullet" for preventing 9/11, you _do_ have to believe that, were the administration disposed to concentrate, 9/11 _might_ have been foiled or delayed, even if not entirely intentionally. If you don't believe that, then there is no point in the debate you talk about.
You have to be schizophrenic to believe that the two issues can be so nicely separated--which is why the American people have done it so nicely.
Christian