Yeah, I know, I know, the umpteenth diary about Richard Clarke and his dalgarn book. But I can't resist. There's been so much speculation about why the White House's response to Clarke's allegations has been more keystone than coordinated, but it bears asking if perhaps the Bushies even actually read the book before vetting it.
Many of us I think have secretly (or not-so-secretly) wondered if the GOP didn't have a really anti-intellectual streak (despite the right's front of "muscular intellectualism") and if that didn't translate in part at least into, well, not really liking to read books. And especially books without pictures in them.
Perhaps the White House was unable to find even a sixth-tier administration hack who was willing to wade through all 304 pages of Clarke's book, and all those compound sentences, and semicolons. One has to wonder if perhaps they didn't just vet the thing unread, then waited for the book-on-tape to come out, before actually finding out what it was about.