Through the magic of TiVo, I'm watching Richard Clarke's interview last night on Larry King Live. Here, he pretty much says what I said he should have said in his testimony…

I didn't praise them. What you're referring to is this background briefing that the White House leaked today in violation of the rules on background briefings. When I was a special assistant to the president — here's what happened. Time Magazine came out with a very explosive story saying, that, in fact, the White House hasn't done everything it could have done. That in fact, that the administration had been handed a plan by me at the beginning of the administration to deal with al Qaeda and that they ignored it. Remember this, this was the cover story on Time and said they had a plan.

Well, that hurt the White House a lot for obvious reasons. It was true. And they asked me to try to help them out. I was working for the president of the United States at the time. And I said, well, look, I'm not going to lie. And they said, look, can't you at least emphasize the things that we did do? Emphasize the positive? Well, you had no other choice at that moment. There are three things you can do. You can resign rather than do it, you can lie and say the administration did all these things it didn't do. Or, if you want to stay inside the government and try to continue to change it from inside, you can stay on, do what they ask you to do, give a background briefing to the press and emphasize those things which they had done. And I chose to do that.

But, you know, it seems very ironic to me that what the White House is sort of saying is they don't understand why I, as a special assistant to the president of the United States, didn't criticize the president to the press. If I had criticized the president to the press as a special assistant, I would have been fired within an hour. They know that.

The whole interview (transcript here) is pretty good, given that it's being conducted by Larry "I don't prepare" King. Also, for those of you who don't want to sit through the video of Clarke's testimony, here's a transcript of the whole session.

I have to get back to a deadline but here's a thought I need to write down here in order to get it out of my mind for a while…

One of the tricks I learned when I was on a couple of Debate Teams back in the sixties was to seize on one of your opponent's errors — or even something that could be sold as an error through artful interpretation. Everyone gets something wrong…some trivial statistic or arguable fact. So if they're hammering you on 23 points you can't refute, you seize on this little anomaly and you say, "Well, if my opponent can't tell the difference between Oscar Mayer Bologna and Oscar Mayer Salami, we obviously can't believe a word he says about these other 23 points so I won't waste your time discussing them." The idea is to dismiss the entire person rather than address points you don't want to address.

Richard Clarke is a smart guy and given his years of service to multiple presidents, I don't think what he says about terrorism can be quickly dismissed…or should be. Is he right? I dunno. I'd like to hear an actual counter-argument to his charges rather than a wholesale attack on his character. If Clarke was out of the loop, who was in it? I'd also like to see folks stop trying to define this controversy down to "Bush good" or "Bush bad." Right now on CNN, as people talk about Clarke's testimony, the superimposed blurb reads, "Fmr. Bush, Clinton Terror Czar Claims Bush Failed to Stop 9/11." That's an unfair oversimplification of Mr. Clarke's position, and that kind of thinking is not going to help anyone.

It's getting harder and harder to tell the real world apart from a Monty Python sketch. Take a look.

I watched about 25% of Richard Clarke's testimony Wednesday afternoon and made a mental note to try and catch the whole thing on some C-Span replay. On the evening's Daily Show, Jon Stewart raved about how fascinating it was, so I flipped over to C-Span, caught some more of it, then watched a little more on the C-Span website. (It's the file titled "September 11 Commission Hearing – Day 2, Afternoon Session" and it'll probably be there for at least a few weeks, if not longer. The whole video is three and a half hours but Clarke only speaks for about the first two hours and fifteen minutes.)

I still haven't seen it all but Mr. Stewart's right: It's a fascinating look at our government, complete with real world examples of how the bureaucracy prevents a lot of important things from being done. Clarke is cool and smart and very much in control most of the time. There was what struck me as a slightly disingenuous reply to a question about reconciling his current statements with that 2002 interview. He explained that as an officer of the Bush (or any) administration speaking to the press, it is his job to attempt to interpret the administration's actions and policies in the most favorable light. I'm paraphrasing here but that was the essence of what sounded to me like an attempt to not say, "Hey, if I'd said what I really felt then, they'd either have fired me or it would have been even harder to get anything accomplished." Other than that, he sounded pretty credible and he was also a lot more positive about the Bush administration than the advance hype might have led you to expect, or that the few quotes cited in this morn's press reports might indicate. I suspect that if and when the Bush administration is under fire for certain 9/11-related actions or inactions, they'll take to citing items in Richard Clarke's testimony as absolving them.

You should not bother watching the testimony if all you're looking for is to hear him trash Bush because he doesn't do that much of it, at least not in the parts I've seen. You should also not watch if you can't cope with someone saying that the Bush administration has made errors, because he does cite a number. I notice on some political sites this evening a drive to either interpret everything he says in the worst possible way for the White House, or to dismiss him as a partisan, lying low-life whose every utterance must be disbelieved. I think both those views are wrong. If you can tear yourself away from them, you might find his testimony quite interesting. This is a smart man and his overriding message today seemed to be not pro-Bush or anti-Bush but critical of a system that, he feels, did not allow a lot to be done that might have made us safer from terrorism. One hopes there's at least someone in Washington who cares about that more than they care about who wins in November.

So I'm taking a walk in my neighborhood earlier this evening and — BAM! — I get sideswiped by a guy on a bicycle. He's a young guy, maybe in his twenties, wearing a helmet and the kind of togs I associate with competitive racing…only there's no race, nor is it the kind of area where they'd have a bicycle race. People are trying to walk there.

The guy's zooming down the sidewalk in a business area, going as fast as he can go, not stopping for anything — not cross-traffic, not stop lights. I don't hear him coming up behind me. One second, I'm walking along. The next, he slams into my left side, almost knocking me to the sidewalk, but keeps on going. Way down the street, he yells, "Sor-ry" and he says it in two long syllables, the way you say it when your parents force you to apologize for something you don't want to be bothered apologizing about. And as he says it, he's zipping across a street, ignoring a "Don't Walk" sign, forcing a motorist to put on the brakes and lay rubber. The guy's just bicycling as fast as humanly possible, expecting the rest of the world to get out of his way.

I suffer no specific injury but my whole body aches from the shock. The pains had better go away by tomorrow morning, 'cause I have things to do. I have to finish an article. I have to go to the market. And on the way to the market, I have to run over a bicycle rider. I hope I get the right one…but if I don't, I'll just yell, "Sor-ry!"

If your satellite or cable company gets The Travel Channel, you might enjoy a silly little show called Fun Food Factories that takes you on tours of the plants that manufacture things like Pez, Charms Blo-pops, Skippy peanut butter, Goldfish crackers, Snapple, Gummi Bears, Marshmallow Peeps and See's Candy. This installment airs again Thursday night at 10 PM (Eastern time) and reruns three hours later and if nothing else, you can count the number of times they mention "High Fructose Corn Syrup."

Daniel Petrie Jr., the newly-appointed President of the Writers Guild of America, west has sent out this letter to all members. Its summary of what has occurred appears accurate to me. Its optimistic tone about the negotiations (and presumption that challenges to the Guild's last election will go away) seem a bit too hopeful to me.

I don't quite know what to make of this report that Richard Clarke, in August of '02, was telling reporters that Bush had ordered the vigorous pursuit of Osama bin Laden. On the one hand, if you're in his job and not planning to quit soon, that's the kind of thing you have to say, especially in this administration. On the other hand, if you give two differing accounts of something, it's reasonable for folks to wonder which time you were telling the truth and which time you were fibbing. (The frustrating part, of course, is that they'll believe whichever one better serves their purpose.)

I wish the Bush administration had defended itself not by portraying Clarke as some kind of lower life form but by offering up documentation…say, copies of presidential briefings or minutes (even redacted) of meetings. The line of response is too much about Clarke's character and not enough about what anyone actually did or didn't do.

For what it's worth, I don't believe killing or capturing Osama would have done (or will do) much to cripple al-Qaeda. His martyrdom might even embolden them. I also don't think there's much value in finger-pointing with regard to pre-9/11 actions. If someone comes forth with proof that either the Bush or Clinton administrations had hard information of the plot, that would be a different matter. But otherwise, the blame-casting — faulting officials for not foreseeing the unforeseeable — seems to me just a matter of "Gotcha" politics. Yes, of course, we now wish more had been done. I was amazed and maybe even impressed that Clarke did say the following during his testimony today…

I welcome these hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the victims of 9-11 and their loved ones. Our government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you. We tried hard but that doesn't matter because we failed.

That's an extraordinary thing for someone in his position to say. Perhaps he just said it because he thought it would make people more likely to believe his current account, I don't know. But I was somewhat stunned by the moment. If anyone sees an online source of a video clip, let me know. The way he said it…and the silence in the room after he said it…were chilling.

[UPDATE, a few minutes later: Here's a link which may or may not work to the clip on the MSNBC site, and if it does work, you'll have to sit through an ad first. It may not be worth it. The way they shot it and chopped it off at the end, it doesn't have the impact that I felt when I saw it live today. In fact, it sounds like a guy sending out for pizza. Just trust me that it was chilling when presented such that it felt like people were actually listening to the man.]

A company called The Rasmussen Poll does daily tracking reports for the presidential election. Yesterday, they had Bush at 47% and Kerry at 45%. Today, they have Bush at 44% and Kerry at 47%. They've put out a news release about this dramatic change, and quite a few news or political sites are announcing it and maybe even discussing it.

Okay, but this poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three points. So aren't these guys really unchanged from yesterday?

I think it's way too early to treat the polls with more than distant curiosity. I can't recall a single recent election where the polls in March had any connection to the results in November. But if we are going to look at these things, shouldn't we stop pretending that a shift within the margin of error has any meaning whatsoever?

Jon Stewart and his crew are still producing the funniest, sharpest political humor I've ever seen on TV. Last week, Dick Cheney gave a self-congratulatory speech about the administration's efforts in Iraq and it wound up sharing a split-screen with the hotel bombing over there. Here's a clip of how The Daily Show presented this.

[UPDATE, a little after 5:00 PM: The folks at Comedy Central have removed from their site every reliable way to link directly to a video clip. I don't understand why they've done this. I mean, you post these clips so people can see them. Wouldn't you want other sites to link to them? Anyway, the above link I jury-rigged will only work with some browsers. Otherwise, go to this page. The particular clip I was referring to is the one entitled "Pre-emption's a Bitch" but while you're over there, you might want to check out any clip from The Daily Show. And if that link doesn't get you there, just give it up and go look at this gallery of Famous Monkeys Through History.]

My pal Earl Kress and I had a lovely chat last evening with Doggie Daddy. You remember Doggie Daddy: The Durante-style mutt who faithfully (often, thanklessly) raised his devoted son Augie in some of the funniest and warmest cartoons ever done for television. The late, great Daws Butler was cast as the voice of Augie…and all the other main characters on the 1959 Quick Draw McGraw show. But when it came time to record the adventures of Augie Doggie and his dear ol' Doggie Daddy, Daws decided doing all those segments of a Jimmy Durante impression would turn his throat to sandpaper and recommended another actor he knew. At least, that's the story the way we always heard it.

Recently, we tracked down the actor who played D.D. (and many other roles in early Hanna-Barbera cartoons) and his version was a wee bit different. Doug Young was a great performer on radio dramas, which is where he met Daws…maybe doing an episode of The Whistler or Lux Radio Theater. By '59, with radio drama a thing of the past, Young was out of show business. One day, he ran into Daws in a record shop and Daws said, in effect, "You ought to be working in front of a microphone again." So they went into Daws' home studio, put together a new demo tape…and that's how Doug Young became Doggie Daddy. I thought the result was one of the most memorable characterizations ever done for a TV cartoon. It may have started as a Durante knockoff but there was something warm and wonderful about the poppa pooch…so it was kind of thrilling to finally "meet" (albeit via telephone) the man behind the voice.

Doug was in H-B cartoons for much of the sixties — he was Hokey Wolf's loyal sidekick, Ding-a-Ling, Yippee in "Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey," plus he played tons of supporting roles on The Flintstones and other shows. In '68, he left Hollywood and now does some regional voice work in his home town. (Still sounds like he always did. He kept lapsing into Doggie Daddy muttering, "My son, my son…") He may be visiting Southern California later this year and if so, we're going to try to arrange a little reunion with some of his old friends from the cartoon voice business. He remembers them fondly and the feeling seems to be quite mutual. (A special thanks to another great vocal thespian, Frank Buxton, who put us in touch with Doug.)

Are Richard Clarke's charges to be believed? Here, arguing for them, are Fred Kaplan and William Saletan. And here, arguing against them, are William F. Buckley and Mansoor Ijaz. Take your pick.

The Bush list of tax increases I mentioned in the previous message wasn't compiled against Michael Dukakis in '88 but against Bill Clinton in '92. Well, I knew it was a Democratic governor.

The point is: Counting the number of tax increases, even if you score them correctly, is meaningless. Some so-called tax increases only apply to a tiny sector of the population and in many cases, they're actually a matter of instituting "use fees," meaning that people pay or co-pay only when they receive government services. Many folks who are for lower taxation (and I'm one) are in favor of voluntary "use fees" in lieu of certain taxes. And of course, not all tax increases are of the same magnitude.

One correspondent also reminds me that both Bushes have also used a bit of creative phrasing. Saying that your opponent has "voted 350 times to raise taxes" is not the same thing as saying that the guy has supported 350 tax increases. Often, a representative votes on a dozen procedural matters that collectively yield one tax increase. But stating it the way the Bushes have makes it sound like twelve tax increases.

Michael Kinsley on the G.O.P. assertion that John Kerry has voted "350 times" to raise taxes. I wish I could find an online source to link to an article Kinsley did back when the previous Bush was running against Michael Dukakis. That Bush had a similar list of supposed tax increases endorsed by Dukakis and Kinsley did a great job of dissecting it as illusory…for example, counting an increase in the gasoline tax as several separate tax increases because it applied to Unleaded, Super Unleaded, Diesel, etc.

But the big thing that's always wrong with these lists is that they take the position that a tax increase is a tax increase, regardless of amounts. If one elected official votes for five 1% increases and another votes for one 10% increase, the former is pilloried for championing five times as many tax increases as the latter. If you were for lower taxes, which of those two guys should you support?

Fred Hembeck (who has a wonderful website here) says he was watching MSNBC — "because someone has to" — and he thought of this…

Lester Holt was interviewing some White House official — Jim Wilkinson, was it? — about Richard Clarke's claims, and while it was no surprise to hear the Bush aide aggressively deny all charges, what did catch my attention was the way this official repeatedly kept referring to Clarke as "Dick Clarke!" He said it so often and so relentlessly that you almost got the feeling that part of their strategy is to repeat "Dick Clarke" over and over, hoping somehow that the public will figure that these damning claims were made not by a high-ranking former official, but the guy who once ran American Bandstand!?! That it wasn't the Bush administration who dropped the ball, but good ol' Dick Clarke — just like he does every New Year's Rockin' Eve!?! Geez, they really do think we're stupid, don't they?

Actually, I noticed a lot of Bush staffers calling him "Dick" today. Cheney called him that on Rush Limbaugh's show, Condoleezza Rice called him that in several statements and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan kept referring to him as "Dick." I don't think it's because they want to confuse him with the TV host. I suspect the idea here is to suggest a familiarity. It's like they're saying, "I know this guy well enough that you should trust my opinion of him."

Figuring out exactly how to refer to your opposition is a science. I remember back during the '92 presidential election, there was a period when Republicans thought the Democratic nominee might be Mario Cuomo. A decision was obviously made to keep referring to the man as "Mario" because that made him sound less serious. The premise, I guess, was that good Americans, at least outside New York, do not vote for someone with a foreign first name…plus they planned to suggest that Cuomo had mob ties so it helped to make him sound extra-Italian. There was one speech in which then-President Bush (the last one) especially acted like there was a contest to see how many times he could refer to his possible opponent as "Mario." He said it so often that the following week on Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey did Bush saying "Mario" over and over.

In the meantime, the Democrats adopted the equally-childish policy of referring to Bush's vice-president by his real name of J. Danforth Quayle. They did that so often that Bush blew up at some public appearance and said it was unbelievably low of them to make fun of a man's name. And of course it was, but it was the same stunt Bush had tried before he discovered he'd be running against a guy with the good ol' American name of Bill. I thought the whole thing was one of those moments when American politics really seems to resemble Kindergarten but without the sandbox and naptime.