The last desperate hours of Richard Clarke Week in Washington found a few people who still had some vetsiges of character attached to their reputations eagerly queing up to toss them on the scrap heap. Bill Frist's performance late Friday afternoon was especially pathetic; he appeared to publically accuse Clarke of perjury and implied dire consequences for the man should the public record be unsealed so that his perfidy can be known, then immediately allowed as to how he himself was unaware of any evidence that Clarke had ever lied about a thing. The White House's strategy for answering (i.e., smearing) Clarke clearly comes down to throwing out baseless allegations and insinuations, then later issuing "clarifications" that take back whatever they said, and hoping that the latter come too late or get uttered too quietly to repair the damage done by the initial slur. A kindly psychiatrist, or Bill Frist's mother, might suggest that it actually speaks well for Frist that he didn't have the stomach to play this game unless he could issue his slander and the accompanying retraction practically in the same burp. Nonetheless, if The New York Times ever again honors this asshole by sticking the honorifc "Dr." in front of his name, they'd better have a note proving that the editor has actually seen him work on somebody's artieries or something.

Not much more uplifting was David Brooks' performance in Saturday's New York Times, bemoaning the "partisanship" of Clarke's performance and complaining about how said partisanship had deplaced serious discussion of terrorism. The piece didn't leave much doubt that Brooks--who as recently as a few months ago was still insisting that it was his concern for the rule of law, and nothing to do with partisanship, that inspired his conviction that the government should be shut down for the better part of a year so that Bill Clinton's enemies could run him to ground over a blow job--thinks the only discussion about terrorism that we ought to be having consists of hailing whatever the Bushies do and pissing on Clinton's memory. He doesn't offer much reason --besides the usual Captain Renault act of pretending to be shocked, shocked that Clarke described the government's actions in the most flattering way possible when that was his job--for thinking that Clarke is wrong on the merits or the facts. But he's criticizing the president's job performance (and, worse, saying that he doesn't measure up to dat ole debbil Clinton), and so his motives and actions must be beyond the pale. The whole column, which waves the word "partisan" around as if it were a wreath of garlic being bransihed before a thirsty vampire, amounts to an admission that Brooks, like most of the people who were there for George Junior during the last several days, isn't loyal to conservative prinicples and isn't loyal to the traditions of the Republican party--he's loyal to President George Bush, Jr., end of character analysis. His definition of "partisan" is anyone who'd have the temerity to ask George, Jr. what he was doing if he was seen holding a smoking gun and standing over a dead body.