Against All Enemies : Inside America's War on Terror

This book is similar in its presentation to another I read by another National Security Council staffer, David Rothkopf, entitled “Running the World.”

I purposely chose to avoid reading this book for quite a time after it came out, as I generally dislike the “timely” political non-fiction. I find that the basic premise is:

I was right. Nobody listened to me. The government operated best when I was at the zenith of power during my career. It was bad before I got to this point and has fallen apart since I was there.

Both of these books more or less followed the same script.

Having said that, Richard Clarke is an incredibly interesting bureaucrat and our government is fortunate to have had employed him. The government is also worse off for having disenfranchised him and others like him. I would love to have dinner with the man over a good bottle of wine or two to hear the stories that he couldn't write.

One final bit of criticism has more to do with the editor than Mr. Clarke himself. One of my pet peeves is the incorrect spelling of homophones. In this case, every time Mr. Clarke wrote “insure,” he really meant “ensure.” It is a minor point but I noticed it each time it was done, totalling probably a dozen times throughout the book.