The White House is finally facing an adversary who has the one thing - the ONE thing - that they had always laid claim to.
The moral high ground.
Geroge, Dick, Condi, Scott and the rest of you? Your false moral bravado is being dismantled by someone who has a real - not manufactured - moral calling in his life. Sure, he stands to sell some books. But those books chronicle the frustration of a man who was literally ignored since the Bush administration wrested control of the government, with disasterous results.
The White House inhabitants on the other hand, are all about power, ego and oil, oil, oil. Everything they've done for the last three years has been toward those goals. The monetary take for books is ridiculously miniscule by comparison. And their version of morality has resulted in death and opportunism.
They've been thrown for a loop by a genuine domestic moralist who is standing firm and not caving in - something they've never dealt with before. You can see it. It's driving them crazy.
Footnote: Due to my Saturday night schedule of bachanalia, I woke up in time to see the last 15 minutes of Meet The Press here in LA. I did see how Clarke revealed he did in fact vote for Gore in 2000, and I placed a correction in the "Miracle" essay. I also saw Russert ask him for the millionth time, "We caught Saddam. Isn't that a good thing?" which is the very definition of apples and oranges. Clarke's answer was superb, rattling off everyone who, if caught, would be a good thing, but they had nothing to do with 9/11. I heard he also produced a hand-written glowing praise by Bush which effectively destroyed their character assassination on him. I'm TiVoing the 7pm CNBC replay and I'll add anything that the blogosphere will shout from our rooftops when I see the whole thing.
