Inside Politics

Clarke’s admission

“If President Bush had followed every last letter of Richard Clarke’s recommendations starting Inauguration Day, it still would not have prevented 9/11,” the Wall Street Journal says.

“How do we know this? Richard Clarke says so,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

“Here’s how the disgruntled National Security Council adviser put it last week in an exchange with Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission and former Washington senator:

“Mr. Gorton: ’Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25 of 2001 … including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for 2 years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted, say, on January 26, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?

“Mr. Clarke: ’No.’

“Mr. Gorton: ’It just would have allowed our response after 9/11 to be perhaps a little bit faster?’

“Mr. Clarke: ’Well, the response would have begun before 9/11.’

“Mr. Gorton: ’But — yes, but we weren’t going to — there was no recommendation on your part or anyone else’s part that we declare war and attempt to invade Afghanistan prior to 9/11?’

“Mr. Clarke: ’That’s right.’

“This startling exchange got almost no media attention last week. Mr. Clarke has rocketed to national fame over the past 10 days by alleging the Bush administration was negligently inattentive to the al Qaeda threat. He took it upon himself to ’apologize’ on behalf of ’your government’ to the families of 9/11 victims, as if there had been policy options on the table — perhaps offered by him — that might have prevented their deaths.

“But when pressed on that point under oath, Mr. Clarke was forced to concede that the impression he’d created, the very reason anyone was paying any attention to him, was false. As long as Mr. Clarke is in the apology business, can we have one for wasting a week of the administration’s precious antiterror time?”

Trouble for Daschle

South Dakota Indian activist Tim Giago plans to run for a U.S. Senate seat as an independent, which could spell trouble for Sen. Tom Daschle’s re-election bid.

South Dakota’s Indians tend to vote heavily for Democrats. In 2002, they provided Sen. Tim Johnson, a Democrat, with enough votes to let him eke out a narrow victory over Republican John Thune. Now that Mr. Giago, a newspaper publisher and Oglala Indian, has decided to run as an independent in the general election rather than challenge Mr. Daschle in the primary, as previously announced, Mr. Daschle faces one more hurdle in what already was seen as a tight race, United Press International reports.

University of South Dakota Professor Bill Richardson says Mr. Giago’s presence as a general election candidate “could influence the race big time.”

“The obvious possibility is that he will take away votes that possibly would have gone to Tom Daschle,” Mr. Richardson told the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader. “The only question is how many and how crucial they will be in a close election?”

Mr. Thune, a former member of the House, will be on the fall ballot for the Republicans.

Kerry’s new buddy

John Kerry, who expressed outrage that President Bush used the subject of Iraq’s missing weapons of mass destruction to poke fun at himself during a recent media dinner, latched onto a veteran who was equally outraged. Unfortunately, the veteran apparently was a former supporter of white supremacist David Duke.

James Taranto, in his Best of the Web Today column at www.OpinionJournal.com, quotes from Mr. Kerry’s press release last week:

“How Out of Touch Can This President Be?

“George Bush insulted me as a veteran and as a friend to many still serving in Iraq. This act lowers the dialogue about weapons of mass destruction. War is the single most serious event that a President or government can carry its people into. No weapons of mass destruction have been found and that is no joke — this is for real. This cheapens the sacrifice that American soldiers and their families are dealing with every single day.” — Brad Owens (Iraqi War Veteran, U.S. Army Reserves)

Mr. Taranto credited blogger Henry Hanks for calling his attention to this 1998 article from the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle:

The Richmond County Republican Party has cast out one of its candidates for the state House.

The party’s executive committee voted to “disassociate itself” from House District 115 candidate Bradley Owens because of his 1992 association with then-presidential candidate David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

A picture of Mr. Owens clasping the hand of Mr. Duke appeared on the front page of the Augusta Chronicle on March 6, 1992, when the avowed white supremacist visited Langley, S.C.

Said Mr. Taranto: “As Hanks writes, the GOP refused to back Owens, ’but now he’s good enough for the apparent Democratic nominee for president of the United States, simply because he’s a veteran.’”

Outraged scientists

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson’s decision to slash the number of government scientists allowed to travel to an international AIDS conference has “sparked outrage” at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Science magazine reports.

Mr. Thompson announced recently that the department would spend only $500,000 to send 50 persons to a July conference in Bangkok, rather than the $3.6 million spent in 2002 to send 236 persons to an AIDS conference in Barcelona.

A spokesman for Mr. Thompson said it was a cost-cutting measure, and that 50 participants is about 10 more than HHS normally would allow for an international conference. The spokesman denied that Mr. Thompson’s decision had anything to do with the fact that he was jeered at the 2002 conference.

Richardson’s book

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson plans to write a book about a political career in which he has huddled with leaders ranging from Saddam Hussein to state legislators.

“Richardson’s Rules: The Making of a Political Life” will be published in 2005, G.P. Putnam’s Sons said Monday.

“The road Richardson has traveled as he has ascended to this country’s top political circles is just as interesting as what he has accomplished,” Carole Baron, president of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, said in a statement.

He will write the book with journalist Michael Ruby, who has edited several nonfiction books and collaborated with “60 Minutes” executive producer Don Hewitt on his 2001 memoir, “Tell Me a Story.”

Mr. Richardson is a former congressman, U.S. energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations.

• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.