...I'll do on the Clarke kerfuffle - because this, aside from everything else, settles it.

If President Bush had followed every last letter of Richard Clarke's recommendations starting Inauguration Day, it still would not have prevented 9/11. How do we know this? Richard Clarke says so.

Here's how the disgruntled National Security Council veteran 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 two and a half 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."

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[W]hen 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?