"You originally described Clarke's role and position through several administrations as being, "at the top of the US anti-terrorism policy chain", for some reason you have now found it convenient to demote Mr. Clarke to being
someone who, "resided at the top levels of the policy chain" - there is a marked difference in the two statements, I responded, as requested, to your first job description for Mr. Clarke, which was incorrect."

your statement, in reply to my first, was that clarke "did not head anything". both of my statements you've included show that i never said he was the head of anything. they are variations of the same sentiment- at the top/resided at the top levels. i did not change the meaning of my statements nor did i say what you've claimed for me. this type of word parsing is evidence of an awfully powerful need to be "correct". in this case i'm afraid you're reaching.

"If Richard Clarke, did not attend "principals" meetings, and was not copied on the minutes of those meetings, he is in no great position to comment on their content."

i would think that in this type of organization there would be minutes of the meeting and records of what was discussed that clarke would be privy to in order to base his claims of what was the agenda of the meetings. if my assumption on this is wrong i'm sure we'll hear about it next week at the hearings.

"The fact that a procedure may prove to be faulty does not mean that those implementing it are in
any way incompetent, or are personally at fault, so in such an instance who would you suggest should be
fired/prosecuted/made to pay and for what?"

i'm curious. do "procedures" occur out of thin air? are they somehow"traditional" like folk music? surely some human or group of humans must at some point create and implement "procedures". and i would think that "procedures" might be inspected by an incoming administration to assure that things haven't been bollixed up by the previous bunch that they campaigned so hard against. i'm not sure how this process has occured in this case so i'm not in a position to identify the person/persons who should be held responsible but i would think that senior officials in the administration should find this type of responsibility in their job description. am i wrong?

"Widespread reaction, within this particular forum, against the provisions of the Patriot Act are fairly well known - I was not attempting to put words into your mouth, if I had been doing that the word "all", would not have appeared after the "you".

you illustrate my point. if you read what i said you'll see that i do not speak for this entire forum or anyone else on it but only for myself and i don't care to be represented by things "fairly well known" or "widespread reaction". i speak clearly and am willing to defend my words and don't care to be characterized otherwise. if you are addressing me and my questions as you indicated then forget the generalizations and speak to my statements. i try to do the same to you in my past posts. if i have failed to do so please call it to my attention.

"The principles upon which your country was founded are not being "surrendered", far from it, they are being
protected. Post-9/11, things changed dramatically for the USA, unfortunately there appears to be a number of
Americans who, for some obscure reason, refuse to realise, or accept that that change has occurred."

this is a point on which we must disagree. i think there are other ways to have dealt with the changed world than GWB has. lots of other people think that also. i both realise and accept that change has occurred but i neither realise nor accept that the approach the bush admin. has taken is the best or only way to resolve the issue. right now the only thing those of us who feel this way can do is try to change administrations in the fall and hope we can implement a more coherent strategy of gathering the world's power, not just our power, against this scourge. the key statement to me in your previous post is this...

"...obtained by what ever means necessary."

i think the means we are now following will lead us to the opposite ends that we all would wish to see. we'll see.