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Mark:

I recognize the apology questions as mere setups, though I do commend Richard Clarke for his apology from a political standpoint. I only wish he really meant it as an apology from him, rather than the foundation from which he chose then to blame everyone BUT himself.

I think Bush should have apologized, but not in the way the questioner wanted. He did a good job of pointing out that OBL, al Queda and the Taliban are the ones who truly need to apologize. But from a public relations perspective, I’d like to have seen W simply say that he is truly sorry that 9-11 wasn’t prevented, that its terrible that information systems throughout the past decade and a half have not been able to prevent attacks, both on US and foreign soil.

Bush could have gone on to say that’s why we need him so much, because he is changing the way AMerica runs and thinks.

He could have, and in my opinion should have, apologized in a way to show how deeply he cares, but without accepting blame for 9-11. He does not deserve the blame, nor does any single administration. But he could have used an apology as his own foundation from which to continue pushing for solutions to the problem of terror.

He should have said: “I apologize for being so bipartisan that I failed to steamroll Democratic opposition to improving national security until after 9-11. I especially apologize for not passing the Patriot Act earlier.”

So, let me see if I understand this. He received a vague warning of hostile intent from a group that has had repeatedly and successfully killed Americans. He assumed his subordinates would take care of it. The attack occurred. The attack was Clintons fault. The sitting president at the time of the attack is blameless.

Debate all you will, people’s minds are changing about this president, and not for in his favor. His home boy act is no longer able to hide his real personality which is arrogant, unrealistically self-confident, and unwilling to consider the voices or views of half or more of the American people. He is a one-sided President who works for anyone who bows at his feet or contributes to his reign, and he could care less about the rest.

November is Kerry’s to lose, not Bush’s to win - he is incapable of reaching out to and embracing the cares and concerns of a broad spectrum of American citizens. His agenda will not yield to the cares and concerns of the majority of Americans - he made that abundantly clear in his speech a few days ago. And the public is beginning to recognize his fraud perpetrated upon them.

If it was only 9/11 that he wouldn’t appologize for, that might be justifiable. But he can’t think of ANYTHING that he would have done differently in his entire presidency? Not one mistake? Not one gaffe? I mean, come on! He could have easily acknowledged something little, and completely trivial to the voting public. But instead, he doesn’t admit to anything, and that just seems pathological.

Gaelen:

I’m sure he was coached to NOT give the Democratic machine any fodder to use in their commercials. Personally, as I said above, I understand that, but think its bad advice. He said he has made mistakes, so we know that he understands that. But he also didnt want to give specificity to that question.

David, the other side of the coin is that Bush is seen by many to be decisive, courageous and consistent, while Kerry is seen as obsequious and indecisive. Now, of course those are the stereotypes of each person to be sure.

I see Kerry having a rise right now, but I think he is peaking too soon. This campaign, more so than others I can recall, seems to be one of major swings (remember that Kerry was considered beaten not more than a few months ago). Of course, if Bush wins, you can say that actually Kerry lost, and no one will be able to prove anything different. But just as in the last two man race, Bush won (the electoral vote), I think he will do so again.

Asking a President to apologize for his legitimate conduct of foreign policy is ludicrous.

Should he apologize for missing 9/11? Perhaps.
He IS the person ultimately responsible for th defense of America. But I think the argument that no one has asked FDR to apologize for Pearl Harbor is applicable.

There would be no political gain for him to apologize and it is insincere for anyone to ask or expect that.

His bungling of the Iraq Invasion/Arab/Muslim geopolitical situation may someday come back to haunt him, but that is hardly a failed policy yet.

I wasn’t looking for apologies, just some substance on where he is going with Iraq and the “War on Terror”. It would be nice if there were more than a “plan as we go” policy. LBJ never apologized for Vietnam, but chose to remove himself from politics.

If Bush wins this election he will not be able to serve another term, and Cheney is too disabled to run. I doubt we’ll hear much from GW if he loses. After all he doesn’t read and won’t have writers feeding him lines. By then we’ll know if the light at the end of the tunnel is victory or an oncoming train.

Gaelen raises a great point. I didn’t expect Bush II to apologize for 9/11. But what a lost opportunity to address the obvious pain this country is in. Instead, we saw more of the sophomore swagger that we’ve seen so often before. The NY Times news article linked to in the original post clearly states Bush and his advisors anticipated that question. So it begs the questions: why didn’t he have an answer? Why wasn’t he prepared to deflect and squash that question once and for all?

I for one wish he’d apologize for wearing that tie. Unless there was some subliminal messaging going on…(just kidding folks;o)

He should have said: “I apologize for being so bipartisan that I failed to steamroll Democratic opposition to improving national security until after 9-11. I especially apologize for not passing the Patriot Act earlier.”

Haha! Martin, you crack me up. Did you just become interested in politics a couple weeks ago? Because you sure have some big gaps in your knowledge.

Unless you’re talking about the missile defense shield, Bush never introduced any national security improvements.

In fact, it was the Republicans in Congress calling terrorism a “phony issue” and blocking Clinton’s security improvements saying, “We don’t want a police state.”

I want to see a 9/11 apology from Gingrich, Lott, Hatch, DeLay, and the rest of those Republican yo-yos:

“We’re sorry we thought a cum-stained dress and ‘salacious’ testimony were more important than protecting American lives from terrorism.”

“We’re sorry we authorized more tax-payer dollars for investigating unfounded scandals than on counterterrorism.”

“We’re sorry we yelled ‘wag the dog!’ every time President Clinton tried to strike at terrorists and destroy Iraqi WMDs.”

I think Clarke basically crystallize what, for political reasons, nobody was willing to admit. 9/11 was a catastrophic failure. The Bush and Clinton Administrations both failed their people. And we should see it as nothing less than that. It wasn’t a Republican failure, nor a Democratic failure- I see more than enough evidence to spread blame all around.

Clarke admitted what everybody else danced around. If it wasn’t genuine, it was brilliant, and what’s more it resonated as true.

I mean, even conservatives are beginning to wonder how it is that a man who is supposed to represent a return of character to the White does not have enough moral capital at his disposal to echo Clarke’s comment.

You know what? Bush should have said it on 9/11. He should have said to America, that The terrorist are to blame for 9/11, but we are to blame for failing to prevent it. If he had done that, not only would it have been honest, it would have been the absolute worse it would ever get for Bush. Stories about his lack of focus before 9/11 would have no legs, calls for apologies would have no necessity. What would they do, make him say he was sorrier?

The truth is, Bush and his people took the opportunity to making him the fearless avenging leader. Only problem with that, is that you have to deliver, or else, you are worse off than you would have, if you had taken a humbler route. You are worse than a person who has not acknowledge the error, you are the person who also compound the error with additional mistakes.

The Criticisms about Clarke are mainly that he’s a self-aggrandizer, that he gives himself the starring role. While that may be true, it’d be true in a substantially different way than Bush’s elevation of his status.

Clarke’s style is to give you a running narrative, a set of events from his perspective. That’s what makes the first part of the book such crackerjack reading. There’s a flow to how he relates things, that just takes you along with him. It’s not that he builds himself up, it’s that he convinces you of where he stands, and he often does so persuasively.

Bush’s style is more about beating people over the head with their need for him, his leadership qualities. He tries to sell you on the ideal of things, including himself.

With Clarke telling the story, he can apologize and reverse himself without much harm to his position. Bush, owever, has to jealously guard his image, because if he yields to any kind of reversal or anything like that, he deflates his image. Unfortunately for Bush, fate is taking a hand, making sure that the things he wanted to keep quiet don’t keep quiet, and now bush is reaping the whirlwind.

Ad so it goes.

Allow me to massage the verbage, a bit. The American public doesn’t necessarily want an apology, rather a contrite leader would suffice.

Like most on the Right, Mark has jumped to the incredulous extreme of indignation. It’s easy to rant on about how Liberals now demand the absolute of an apology.

Yet, he weakens his argument by citing no less than the trivial ‘major combat’ issue, than Tenet’s absence from the Aug 6th PDB.

Does admiting to making mistakes equal an apology? For admiting overlooking clues shame one like an apology?

Months ago, an admission that terrorism or Bin Laden was not a priority would have been excused by voters. A contrite statement, ‘we made mistakes’, at his press conference would’ve stopped the damage.

But, the only one that sees it as an apology are those to arrogant to see it’s benefit.

Oh please, this is ridiculous. This was an oh so obvious political ploy to get the President to admit he was reposnible for 9/11. If they couldn’t get him to admit he made mistakes they were going to try to get him to apologize, whichin essence would have been the same as admitting responsibility. As soon as he was doing either, the front pages of the news and the news broadcasts would have been blaring “Bush Admits Responsibility for 9/11”, and the Kerry campaign would have been using this for campaign ads.

The President does not owe ANYONE an apology, as for that phoney baloney Clarke, who book was released just before he testified before the 9/11 Dog & Pony show, what a farce and an obvious attempt at striking an emotional nerve and increasing book sales !

I don’t know who some of you have been talking to, but the people I talk to are upset with the news media for trying to set the President up. They do not think the President should apologize.

There is plenty of blame to go around in the 9/11, but short of hearing that they told the President that planes were going to fly into the WTC and the pentagon and the captital or whitehouse on Sept. 11 2001, I do not believe you can blame President Bush.

Instead of pointing fingers we should be offering remedies to our failed intelligence gathering and sharing, and what ever else failed to bring on 9/11, and I don’t believe it was one issue, I believe it was many failures over a cumulative number of years that added up to 9/11.

God Bless the United States of America !

No, J.R. - what it is is a test of character - people want to know as November approaches whether we have a President or a King. Looking more like King George everyday, descended from a deified ancestry which can do no wrong. He does have a PR problem and his ‘Duh, I just can’t think of anything right now’, ploy is showing up in the polls.

Double digit lead for Kerry in N.Y. N.Y. where it all began, has lost confidence, and the rest of the nation will follow N.Y.’s lead if Rove and Bush can’t do any better than this.

J.R., That obvious attempt at selling books has one problem with it- Clarke had no choice about the timing. Clarke could only publish the manuscript after a National Security check was done on the book to ensure he wasn’t accidentally leaking important secrets.

Bush’s people apparently took their time getting that done. He gave it to them last year.

Besides, what’s important is what it says, and how capable Bush’s people are of refuting it. It doesn’t matter what motives you can ascribe to Clarke- take a look at the facts. If Clarke’s facts are verifiably true, then you must deal with the facts, whatever interpretation you take. Clarke may be an obnoxious self-aggrandizer for all we know, but if he’s telling the truth, acting with disregard for what he says can only make things worse. As the banner says, critique the message, not the messenger.

Stephen and J.R.,

“The truth is more important than the facts.” —Frank Lloyd Wright.

I haven’t done this since the Prodigy service News BB. (I worked for them, but that was Otis’s BB.) Oh, memories, memories, etc.

Anyway, you have the arguments very well under control, and I applaud the quality of posters drawn to Watchblog.

Okay, I want to assure Bert that my post was not one write of indignation; rather, I was confounded by the extent to which some people would reach to demand an apology. No apology is needed. There is nothing for which to apologize. (Though Joebagodonuts has a good point, in that it would have been a good thing for the President to apologize on behalf of the entire U.S. government for not being organized in such a way as to prevent such an attack. But then again, how could they have known? It had worked fine for two score years.)

Explain how I weakened my argument by referring to the “major combat is over” statement or that Tenet’s hair was not on enough fire to have him front-and-center when the 8-6 PDB was delivered.

David, the election is always the incumbents to lose. Right now, President is running against no one, the ultimate null. I do not see how that campaign can convince anyone to vote for JF Kerry. He has to convince people to vote against the President, and he’s not doing that.

The President is now polling nationally at the lowest point in his Administration, at least post-September 11. A good deal of the marginal supporters in the national poll are not now enthusiastic about him. Almost no one is enthusiastic about Kerry. Barring a major event — which is almost impossible in the world today — Kerry has peaked. I’m not sure if the President has bottomed out, but he is at least awfully close.

Kerry needs a heck of a lot more than this.

Yes, I am a partisan personally, but I do have to sometimes stand back and look without the tinted glasses.

Clarke’s been mentioned a number of times in this thread. I’ve finally gotten the book and I’m into his 4th chapter, and I gotta tell you, the guy’s style is incredible. Clarke-haters should grab a library copy and read it. It’s really quite mild in its criticisms, while at the same time providing, in the first chapter, an unbelievable window into what happened on 9/11 from Clarke’s point of view. His is not an omniscient perspective, and he never tries to imply that it is.

His clarity is refreshing.

Mark, do you read the news? Kerry has double digit lead in N.Y., dead even in Oregon and a couple points ahead nationwide. I know it is difficult to believe that half or more of the country does not believe as you do, but, the truth and facts in this case are what they are.

If Bush’s handling of the office was so overwhelmingly transparent and good, polls would not be what they are.

Mark,

Explain how I weakened my argument by referring to the “major combat is over” statement or that Tenet’s hair was not on enough fire to have him front-and-center when the 8-6 PDB was delivered.

___________________________________

My point is that those on the Right would rather cite trivial issues (major combat), rather than weightier or more contentious issues (Aug 6 PDB, Clarke’s claims), when defending the administration’s actions.

Remember the accounts of Powell’s frustrations with the intel just before the UN speech? The recent Vanity Fair article described Cheney pulling him aside in the hall, saying (paraphrase) ‘…your approvals are in the high 70’s, you can afford to lose some points.’

David, Kerry being up a couple points nationwide is innacurate: the average of the major polls as of 4/16 shows Kerry at 44.5 and Bush at 44.3, a razor thin margin. I also believe you’re wrong about Oregon—today’s polls show Bush up two points there, and Gore carried OR in 00. And if you’re going to offer NY, a major Dem base, as an example, why not point to Texas or that the biggest lead enjoyed anywhere is by Bush in Utah, where Bush is 33 points up. Do those numbers prove that Bush is doing a marvelous job?

I don’t think so either, and my only point is that polls now are mostly meaningless as a comment about the president’s performance because they correlate pretty closely with the political identifications of Americans in various regions. Unfortunately (because I think the president’s done a marvelous job) polls reflect these identifications more than facts (and Bert, the idea that the PDB is an way a “weighty” issue is the sort of empty partisanship you accuse Republicans of). Polls are bull. If Bush personally discovered a cure for cancer in his spare time, the polls would be pretty much the same.

Stephen and J.R.,

“The truth is more important than the facts.” —Frank Lloyd Wright.

I am always wary of systems of thought that give people the ability to find the truth without finding their way through the facts first.

Without a reliance on the facts, we just spin our wheels, losing our grip on the truth that gives birth to those facts.

All in all, I think Kerry is more free to do what he needs to do than Bush is. Bush has hemmed himself in with a policy that he has little idea of how to creatively wield.

The facts? Even if everything Clarke says is true, what he offers that’s getting so much press is only an interpretion of those facts—we call those “opinions.” It’s not surprising, really, that a Gore-voter and Democratic appointee (one trying to sell books to boot) would have such opinions. Only Democratic wishful thinking elevates such opinions to the level of facts.

Kerry is perfectly free, Stephen, to say anything at all, even when to “do what he needs to do” means taking both sides of any issue. That’s the beauty of being able to snipe from the sidelines. He can even do it (since Democrats don’t ask for consistency unless it’s consistent obstructionism to Bush) without taking responsibility for the votes he’s cast in favor of the same policies he now condemns.

Bush has hemmed himself in with a policy that he has little idea of how to creatively wield.

You’re right, Stephen. Because Bush makes such a big deal about “flip-flopping” (as if changing course in light of new facts for the good of the nation is bad), it’s hard for him to rethink strategy without getting that thrown back in his face.

I’ve done it to him myself on my blog because it’s such an easy/lazy way to score cheap points. :)

The facts? Even if everything Clarke says is true, what he offers that’s getting so much press is only an interpretion of those facts—we call those “opinions.”

Martin,

If Clarke’s assertions are just his ‘opinion’ or, just his ‘interpretation of the facts’, then why would the White House bother to dig up his old memos, emails, and declassify his 2000 Congressional testimony?

The facts? Even if everything Clarke says is true, what he offers that’s getting so much press is only an interpretion of those facts—we call those “opinions.” It’s not surprising, really, that a Gore-voter and Democratic appointee (one trying to sell books to boot) would have such opinions. Only Democratic wishful thinking elevates such opinions to the level of facts.

We go to lawyers and doctors for their opinions. We employ analysts and investigators for their opinions. Opinions are a currency of value in a society so complex that difficulties arise in trying to gain total knowledge. An opinion, properly approached, can point the way to signs and indicators which, providing the opinion is sound and valid, would allow us to infer past what we can know and observe.

Good, soundly founded opinions allow us to reconstruct huge amounts of information from just a few scraps. Give some Paleontologists a toe bone of a dinosaur, and they’ll reconstruct the whole damn thing for you. Give Clarke some information about where certain members of Al Quaeda are, and he give you some idea of what they were doing there, and why. People like Clarke can draw from a long memory of bios, situation reports and evidence. This is the kind of evidence Clarke used in his book. When he poo-pooed Laurie Mylroie’s theory, he took pains to say what made him so skeptical about was that all evidence proved her theory of a Ramzi Yousef double to be false.

In the end, I would much rather follow opinions that found themselves on facts that support such inferences, than follow opinions that found themselves on ideology, which is what the neocons have done.

Kerry is perfectly free, Stephen, to say anything at all, even when to “do what he needs to do” means taking both sides of any issue. That’s the beauty of being able to snipe from the sidelines. He can even do it (since Democrats don’t ask for consistency unless it’s consistent obstructionism to Bush) without taking responsibility for the votes he’s cast in favor of the same policies he now condemns.

Kerry was willing to vote for the version of the bill funding further action in Iraq that forced Bush to give up his tax cuts so that America wouldn’t have pay off greater debt to prosecute what Kerry came to believe was an ill-founded war. The fact that he did not simply flip-flop on the principle of fiscal responsibility speaks better of his character than Bush’s monumental flip-flop on fiscal responsibility, going from a person who championed smaller government to a man quite willing to bloat the budget to gargantuan proportions. Your people may have been able to propagandize Kerry into looking like a waffler, but it’s your president whose actions have turned out most inconsistently with his stated philosophies. Kerry has been a consistent cutter of spending according to his record, moving to take billions of dollars out of the budget in another time when Republicans kept the pursestrings loose.

Kerry has consistently backed military action. He just thinks its time Bush started being consistent about his philosophies.

It’s not surprising, really, that a Gore-voter and Democratic appointee (one trying to sell books to boot) would have such opinions. Only Democratic wishful thinking elevates such opinions to the level of facts.

It’s mighty ironic that Martin goes off on Democrats problems with facts by using the load of bull right here.

Clarke was a Reagan appointee originally, so your facts are wrong.

Hughes, Frist, and many others are also trying to sell books, so your attempted smear falls flat on its face.

Do you want to try again?

Did we ask FDR to apologize for Pearl Harbor? Did we have a Pearl Harbor commission in the middle of WWII? Why should Bush apologize? We should disband the 9/11 commission now because of a conflict of interest with one of the commissioners.

I might be more inclined to your point of view Jason if a chief justice named Scalia would follow your advice. But, what is good for the goose should be good for the gander, eh?

“If Bush personally discovered a cure for cancer in his spare time, the polls would be pretty much the same.”

no I dont think so Martin, however I hope he gets on that, at least then something good would come from this bush:)

Comment deleted for name calling - WatchBlog Manager.

No way should there be an apology from the President or anyone else! Remember the terrorists are the ones who did this evil deed!! Just like liberals thought…blame somebody else…blame America! Get real! Did FDR apologize for Pearl Harbor. You left wing whackos are sick people. The press just kept bating Bush to apologize…and if he did YOU KNOW the Democrats, press and other nut jobs would have a field day with that. Republicans don’t blame anyone except the perpetrators..the TERRORISTS! You all need to get over the fact taht you lost in 2000 and are at the lowest power in over 50 years..not only in Washington, D.C. but state after state.. GET REAL!

Did we have a Pearl Harbor commission in the middle of WWII?

Apologizing for 9-11 makes as much sense as apologizing for Beauracracy. Apologizing for lying incessantly about Iraq is another story. This is a sordid story of personal vendetta (he tried to kill my Daddy, maybe); phoney WMD’s (we are the greatest perpetrators of WMDs the world has ever seen including supplying Hussien the technology for use against Iranians & double crossing the Kurds);phoney concern about the health and well being of Iraqis (Bush would never support health care for Americans, much less Democracy); phoney accusations against Saders newspaper. The lies never stop flowing from the mouth of this stumble bum, except when he’s tongue tied. That his handlers can preserve his electablility says more about US intelligence than anything the 9-11 commision will ever uncover. The Iraq war is a beautiful distraction from our staggering economy, which he continues to falsely hype for the benefit of his chronies. Clarke is right, Iraq has undermined the war on terrorism. He should apologize to all the American families whose lives he’s ruined for no reason, but he won’t.

Dave, concerning your point about Kerry leading in the polls in New York: New Yorkers voted in Hillary as one of their senators and although he is a Republican, the mayor of NYC is harldy a conservative. Saying Kerry leads Bush in the polls in NY is like saying Kerry leads in the polls in MA or RI (where I live). The North East is extremely liberal (RI, MA, VT). Kerry should win the NE states. Obviously Bush needs to worry about places like Oregon, but I would think the NE is Kerry territory. But don’t count Bush out in NY, as liberal as NY is,I still think it is up for grabs.

Lee look at the date of the pearl harbor commission, it is 1946, war ended in 1945. The commission was formed after several investigative bodies completed their work. While the investigative work did go on through the war, this work was focused on creating a stronger defense in the war, not on a dig to assign blame. After the end of the war, the pearl harbor commission was formed to gather the investigations of the preceding years and to attempt to determine what went wrong in American defense.

Bryan, here’s the dates and comissions:

The Knox Investigation
Dec. 9-14, 1941.

The Roberts Commission
Dec. 18-January-23, 1941

The Hart Investigation
Feb. 12-June 15, 1944

The Army Pearl Harbor Board
Jul. 20-Oct. 20, 1944

The Navy Court of Inquiry
Jul. 24-Oct. 19, 1944.

The Clarke Investigation
Aug. 4-Sep 20, 1944

The Clausen Investigation
Jan. 24-Sep. 12, 1945

The Hewitt Inquiry
May 14-July 11, 1945

The Joint Congressional Committee
Nov. 15, 1945-May 23, 1946

The 9/11 commission isn’t to assign blame, either. It’s “focused on creating a stronger defense in the war”.

In fact, the commission was hand-picked by Bush so, if anything, it should be singing his praises as a warrior king.

This American won’t apologize