And This is Surprising Because?

Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism

On Sept. 11, 2024, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

This hardly strikes me as damning. As James Joyner poitns out

of course terrorism wasn’t the main focus of Bush Administration foreign policy before 9/11. It wasn’t the top focus of Clinton policy, either. Why would it have been? Essentially no one in the national security establishment, save people who were terrorism specialists, considered terrorism the top priority on September 10, 2024.

Indeed, aside from Clarke, this was largely what the other testimony to the 911 panel has revealed.:

But the players did not clash. Despite some sniping and testiness, the surprising theme was unity.

Democrats and Republicans alike -- past and present secretaries and deputy secretaries of state and defense -- spoke little of Clinton vs. Bush and lots about Before vs. After.

Really, the reason Clarke's credibility has been so questioned is because he insists that the Clinton administration was radically more focused on the question than was the Bush administraion pre-911 and it is manifestly obvious that this isn't true.