Don't be surprised to see former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke working for Hillary Clinton if she wins the election. Based on what he said on yesterday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Clarke seems to be signaling that he's receptive to yet another high-profile government gig.
This became apparent when one considers the striking contrast in how Clarke perceives current threats to our country, specifically cyberattacks, and his well-publicized allegations of failure on the part of George W. Bush and co., to keep Americans safe on and after 9/11.
What a difference it makes when Clarke is spouting advice and the president's last name isn't Bush.
Consider, for example, Clarke's opening remarks before the 9/11 Commission when he testified in 2004 --
I welcome these hearings because of the opportunity that they provide to the American people to better understand why the tragedy of 9/11 happened and what we must do to prevent a reoccurrence. I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, to them who are here in the room (Clarke turning in his chair and nodding in their direction), to those are watching on television (pause for effect), your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you (pause for effect) failed you. And I failed you.
It's always struck me as odd that Clarke was apparently incapable of offering this apology until he could do so, in effect, for those "watching on television." How magnanimous of him.
That same year, Clarke published an expose titled "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," in which he excoriated the Bush administration's handling of the threat from radical Islam.
In his preface to the book, Clarke claimed that Bush "failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda despite repeated warnings and then harvested a political windfall for taking obvious yet insufficient steps after the attacks; and who launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide."
Clarke, who began working in government under Reagan, also criticized presidents Clinton, the elder Bush and Reagan in "Against All Enemies." Before faulting George W. Bush for launching an "unnecessary and costly war in Iraq," Clarke slammed George H.W. Bush "who left Saddam Hussein in place, requiring the United States to leave a large military presence in Saudi Arabia." As Clarke sees it, the first Bush was wrong for letting Saddam remain in power, the second Bush at fault for taking him out.
A decade and a half after 9/11, Clarke is sounding the alarm about our vulnerability to cyberattack, specifically from Russia. Here he was on This Week yesterday after hearing ABC News correspondent Pierre Thomas report on "an unprecedented level of hacking targeting this presidential election cycle" and that the "primary suspects" are tied to the "highest levels of the Russian government" --
THIS WEEK HOST GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Officials believe Russia is behind this, can't say so publicly because they're afraid?
CLARKE: They're afraid to kick off a cyberwar where the United States is forced by public opinion, by congressional opinion, to retaliate, and if we retaliate against Russia with a cyberattack of some sort, we could get into a spiral that would be a cyberwar. And the United States is so vulnerable to cyberattack on our infrastructure, the White House doesn't want to start that.
So while Obama officials "can't say publicly" they are fearful of provoking cyberwar with Russia, Clarke bravely showed no such hesitancy. Retaliating against Russia for this, he warned, could lead to cyberwar and that's the last thing we should do since we are "so vulnerable" to an attack on our aging infrastructure. Translation -- Keep your heads down and maybe they won't see us. The last thing we want is to fight the Russians -- because we'll lose.
Is it really such a great idea for one of our most vocal experts on counterterrorism to publicly proclaim to the Russians that they would roll over us in a cyberwar? (And presumably in the shooting war that would soon follow). Had Clarke been advising JFK in October 1962, the Russians' missiles remain in Cuba.
A House Democrat appearing on yesterday's This Week, Adam Schiff of California, sounded positively Reaganesque after Clarke's waving the white flag for all in the Kremlin to savor --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Several of your colleagues have gotten briefings on all this, calls for more aggressive action.
SCHIFF: Absolutely. I think it's every important to establish a deterrent because we're just seeing more and more of this, the hacking of our democratic institutions, the hacking of our voter registration databases, and those databases have no foreign intelligence value. They're only valuable if your intention is to essentially prepare the cyber battlefield to make mischief in our elections. And I think that the Russians respect one thing and that's strength and if they see an open door, that's an invitation to do more. I think we ought to begin naming and shaming them and work with our allies around the world who also have been hacked and interfered with by the Russians.
Even when given another chance to weigh in, Clarke didn't sound at all like he did when going after Bush --
STEPHANOPOULOS: If you were in the White House right now, what would you be recommending?
CLARKE: I'd be recommending we try to work with the states. There are a couple of states that don't have paper ballots. They have machines where you push a button and that's it, there's no paper record. We need something as a backup so in case the election does get messed up in some way, we can count paper votes.
Wouldn't it be better to focus instead on "something" -- lots of 'em, even -- to prevent this from happening instead of a strategy for cleaning up after?
Clarke made himself famous back in 2004 with his ostentatiously public apology for not doing more to prevent 9/11, that those "entrusted with protecting you," himself included, "failed you." Perhaps Clarke should get his next apology out of the way before we're attacked again, seeing how the US is such a sitting duck against Russia and all he has to offer is advice on responding to the hit.
