Richard Clarke has made it OK to criticize Bush openly

[Mountainman]

I think Clarke has opened a hole in the dike that the Bushies cannot plug anymore and the leak is going to become a flood.

My guess is that from now on it will be OK to talk openly about what is good for the country and not only what is good for the Bush regime.

There will always be the media whores but now those with a conscience will look to Clarke and emulate him. They will feel that it is their duty to their country to speak out against Bush.

The genie is out of the bottle and the administration cannot put him back. The more the right attacks Clarke the worse it gets for them. Clarke has too much integrity and they cannot impugn him.

If they spend all their time trying to destroy Clarke's character they will not be able to present their message. They have to make a choice. Either stop the character assassinations and present a positive message about themselves or keep up the losing game of trying to destroy people. My guess is that they will keep up the attacks because they have nothing positive to sell and they don't know any other way to win but to attack. That method is losing it's effect because the right has no integrity left.

Richard Clarke is a national hero. I hope they don't try to pull a Welstone on him.

[htuttle]

1. The Emperor Wears No Clothes!

:evilgrin:

[tridim]

2. I'd love for Kerry to be able to say

"The Republicans have spent more time, money and effort going after Clarke than they have going after Bin Laden and the real sources of terrorism."

[Trajan]

3. Furthermore ...

It has presented a range of arguments that ALL Democrats, from Kerry through ALL the Democratic Congessional Caucus and Progressive Pundits .... ALL can now use the various points brought up by Clarke against every GOP/PNAC/Bush WH/GOP Congressional supporter ...

I just watched Edward Markey (D) TEAR DOWN Christopher Shays (R) when Shays insinuated that "CLINTON Didnt do enough to stop Al Qaeda" ... pointing out that the GOP claimed Clinton was 'wagging the dog' and made it politiclly difficult to execute strong action against OBL and the Taliban ....

EVERY point is a club with which to pummel our opponents: ...

Those who support Bush and his record are exposed to these same facts ...

[Warren Stuart]

4. Having Condi attack him, even though she won't testify

Was a huge mistake, it made her look like a hypocrite. Someone else should have done the dirty deed. Plus she and Cheney should have gotten their stories straight.

They are just reacting, they are not driving the message. They feel that this will blow over, and it will, until the next batch of bad news erupts. Whether it will be the Plame investigation, Medicare extortion investigation, Memogate, just to name a few. There is enough bad news for Bush to prevent him from having the sort of control that he requires.

We may have reached critical mass.

[patricia92243]

7. Some news program said the Bush admin. should have just ignored Clarke....

"and it would have only lasted a week" now that Bush has responded "It will last two weeks". Disgusting!

[Skittles]

5. I would give Howard Dean the initial credit

Dr. Dean first did what everyone else was hesitant to do - not just criticize Bush but SLAM THE F*** OUT OF HIM.

[madfloridian]

6. And I agree with you. He was called politically incorrect and worse.

I agree.

[Skittles]

8. I was never a major Dean fan

but I give credit where credit is due - and I think a lot of Bush's current woes can be directly traced to Dean and his fiery personality. :D