Typical
Just watched the 60 Minutes interview with Richard Clarke, who's Against All Enemies will be published tomorrow. The interview's been talked about quite a bunch amongst the blogs- but seeing was, well...startling. Clarke worked in Reagan's, Bush's, Clinton's and W's administrations in counter-intelligence--he's no partisan hack nor ignorant hoot. Indeed, his resume is what makes his rather dismal telling of the W. Bush's work against terrorism damning. I'm sure we'll have responses to Clarke both here, and in blogs throughout.
For now, as to the heading above. At the end of the story, as Lesley Stahl stood in front of the ticking 60-Minutes-clock, she said something along the lines of this:

Over the weekend, we (60 Minutes) got a call from the Pentagon, saying any suggestion that the Bush administration did not respond forcefully and fully to al Qaeda is absurd.

As I watched the administration get the last word in an otherwise damning interview, I saw again what is so incredible about these folks- their utter lack of respect for the American voters' intellect. The necessary second half of that statement is absent. Such an assertion is absurd because...
But, of course, there is no because. It's just absurd. We might throw in, for good measure and consistency, unpatriotic; aiding the terrorists; soft and indecisive...and the plethora of other misnomers that this administration gives to criticism.