There is no doubt that Mr Clarke has thrown 100 pounds of red meat to the Democrats with the help of his publisher, CBS. His charges will be taken out of context again and again. BUT when you look at Clarke's suggestions like washing a bunch of life rafts ashore on the beach to simulate an invasion and so on, it's quite possible this nut case was put on the outside of the box. He was obsessed with cyber-terror not flying planes into the WTC. Sadly, the hearings this week will be a partisan joke. Democrats eager to lionize their former leader and the GOP trying to demonize him and lionize Bush. The hearings, if held honestly by people who cared about the country, could be good. They won't be. All this while Hamas readies itself for the jihad of the century. Their threats make Bush the stronger candidate and the more they threaten the more likely it is that Bush will win.

HOWEVER one charge that both Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Niel make could stick to Bush like glue and one that the Democrats may finally use is that Bush team had made up its mind to invade Iraq long before 9/11. Clarke offers more documentation, because he was in more of those meetings. This is the one charge that is serious because it has more than one source.