Farce

The 911 Commission and the furor over Richard Clarke’s testimony gets worse every time I look at it.
Glenn Reynolds thinks Condoleeza Rice ought to testify before the commission. I agree. But he also says he hopes she says this from David Frum:

This administration came into office to discover that al Qaeda had been allowed to grow into a full-blown menace. It lost six precious weeks to the Florida recount — and then weeks after Inauguration Day to the go-slow confirmation procedures of a 50-50 Senate. As late as the summer of 2001, pitifully few of Bush’s own people had taken their jobs at State, Defense, and the NSC. Then it was hit by 9/11. And now, now the same people who allowed al Qaeda to grow up, who delayed the staffing of the administration, who did nothing when it was their turn to act, who said nothing when they could have spoken in advance of the attack — these same people accuse George Bush of doing too little? There’s a long answer to give folks like that — and also a short one. And the short one is: How dare you?

Ugh. No. Can we please not go there?
For God’s sake leave the Florida recount out of the national security debate. This is far more petty and partisan and obnoxious than anything Richard Clarke has said. I can hardly imagine anything less relevant. Imagine if he dragged the Florida recount into his testimony. The GOP would be agitating for thumb screws.
Glenn adds:

As I’ve said before, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones before September 11….

Yes. That’s the spirit. Really, it is.
Look.
The US government had a weak response to Al Qaeda before 911. The US government. Not Clinton. Not Bush. The entire government.
The media and the left just adore Richard Clarke because he beats up on Bush and praises Clinton. (Oh, and he grandstands about regime-change in Iraq, even though that has nothing whatever to do with pre-911 failures.) Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds is cheering David Frum and hoping Condoleeza Rice will channel him in her testimony because he’s beating up on Clinton and not Bush. And bringing Florida and Senate confirmations into it, which also have nothing whatever to do with terrorism and national security.
Is no one embarrassed by the transparent partisanship of this entire charade?
The farther we get from 911 the less people seem to care about terrorism and the more they like to use it as a stick to beat up the other guy. I can’t see how this can possibly be good for the country. The transatlantic alliance is coming apart, and so is any shred of a bipartisan alliance here at home. It has become a partisan point-scoring farce.