This guy is seriously dishonest (or incompetent!). Now O'Reilly is attacking Clarke for the Fox "on background" interview and pretending that Clarke didn't spend a big chunk of today's hearing explaining it in a way that everyone understands. He is either lying, or he didn't even watch Clarke's testimony. Either way, O'Reilly is a hack.
Here is a summary:
O'Reilly teases his show with: "More bloviating in DC today about 9/11, including testimony by the controvercial Richard Clarke. The question is, what is this guy's real agenda. We have some new information for you..."
He starts the first segment with: "The more I learn about this guy, the more I'm skeptical... that he is now using his knowledge for political reasons."
He then goes on to play two soundbites. The first is a clip from Clarke's testimony, saying that terrorism was highest priority under Clinton, not urgent for Bush.
Then he plays a clip of him from Fox's "on background" interview, that was released earlier today and states that Bush tried to step up the war on terror.
Then he himself bloviates: "Will the real Richard Clarke please stand up! Two sound bites you just heard them, something going on here."
He also attacks Bob Kerrey for excoriating Fox today, so he obviously had access to the content of hearings (he gets cspan?).
Ofcourse he includes the requisite challenge to come on the factor: "The other thing that makes us suspicious about Clarke is that his publisher has not booked him on the Factor."
His first guest is a student in Clarke's class who said that Clarke was more "angry" than Rand Beers, but could dicern no bias.
O'Reilly asked him questions like:
"Do you see anything other than a personal grudge against bush, has he become an idealogue of any kind"
He also tells the kid to confront Clarke about his "different" descriptions of the Bush administration: "Ask him for me, so you don't take the heat, about the discrepencies between the two soundbites."
Oh, If only Clarke would answer these contradictions!
But wait but he did. Surprise. Guess O'Reilly didn't even watch his testimony (or is deceiving his factor paper-weight owning listeners).
I'll do his homework for him: Clarke Testimony