I wasn't there so I can't really comment much on the catfight currently going on over who said what in internal debates inside the administration. I can only say one thing that I know is valid. Grow up!
The truth is that there's a reason that internal debate is supposed to stay inside the administration. Especially when a big event goes on and you need to build a new policy direction from scratch (the very thing that happened on 9/11) you want to start off with a period of letting loose with the most off the wall ideas. You want to create a climate of being able to toss out all sorts of thoughts and proposals and winnow them out later.
What you don't want is a bunch of people who are intensely image conscious and won't speak up and provide an idea rich terrain from which the best will be refined and eventually implemented and the rest quietly discarded without damaging any reputations. And regardless of whether Clarke is telling the truth or not. The kinds of accusations that he's making, that internal debates went along nonproductive lines but were not implemented in policy are almost tailor made for sabotaging the intellectual problem solving process. You couldn't create a better method of stifling innovation and problem solving creativity if you tried.
Again, it doesn't make any difference if he's right or wrong on the facts in his tell all tome. He's still materially impeding the policy process for this, and future administrations of either party and that makes him a self-interested, mercenary, huge jerk.
Posted by TMLutas at March 23, 2004 08:49 PM