It should air at around 7:15 this evening — delayed by the NCAA Basketball Tourney, of course, but Richard Clarke, head of the White House Counter-Terrorism division under Bush and Clinton, is on tonight, talking about his new book. He paints a less than flattering picture of the Bush administration.

From CBS News::

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said … no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, ‘Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"Initially, I thought when he said, ‘There aren’t enough targets in– in Afghanistan,’ I thought he was joking.

and more…

Clarke relates, "I began saying, ‘We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.’ Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, ‘No, no, no. We don’t have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.’

"And I said, ‘Paul, there hasn’t been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!’ And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, ‘Isn’t that right?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

Clarke went on to add, "There’s absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever."

And for more reading on this issue… Brad DeLong’s take on it… and Atrios’ ideas as well.

I agree with Professor DeLong. Impeach them. Impeach them now.

Update: For all those who didn’t watch it, be sure to read the 60 Minutes story link above. 60 Minutes also has a video link.

This one will be hard for the Bush Administration to refute. Clarke, like Paul O’Neill, is someone who has spent his career working at the highest levels of government — and Republican administrations at that. He came off in the interviews and strong, committed and truly outraged by the behavior of this administration. In contrast, the Bush administration official, Steven Hadley, really did not appear to have the courage of his convictions at all. His non-denial about a conversation Clarke says happened was worse on video than it reads… and it doesn’t read well (again, from CBS:

As for the alleged pressure from Mr. Bush to find an Iraq-9/11 link, Hadley says, "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."

When told by Stahl that 60 Minutes has two sources who tell us independently of Clarke that the encounter happened, including "an actual witness," Hadley responded, "Look, I stand on what I said.

It’s hard to read the administration’s repeated lies as anything but a belief that if they keep repeating these lies long enough, people will believe them. They have $100 million reasons to believe that, I suppose, but I have to believe that the truth matters somewhere in all of this.

I want to see a Kerry ad that asks, "Why are all of Bush’s former advisors speaking out against him? If the members of his own administration don’t believe his lies, why should the American people?"

At the end of the day, I think billmon at The Whiskey Bar says it best, in his post-60 Minutes entry…

If tonight’s 60 Minutes doesn’t shake our fellow Americans out of their illusions about George W. Bush, nothing will.