Gentlethings, start your engines, or at least your VCRs and TIVOs. This is a bullseye shot headed straight for the vaunted presidential Codpiece of Justice. NSC terrorism advisor Richard Clarke’s experience certainly explains why the Terra Preznit stonewalled the 9/11 commission for so long, then had Hastert try to shut it down before the panel could get to Clarke. (Note the WH wording in the underlined non-denial denial: evidence of a conversation? Gee, why not just let the press ask him, like they do in real democracies?)

Add to this the upcoming testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday on how Dr. Rice and others ignored explicit and urgent warnings immediately after the election and it’s going to take more than wisecracks about Kerry’s Frenchness to reverse Bush’s luge ride down the polls.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn’t seem to be one. The charge comes from the advisor, Richard Clarke, in an interview airing Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT on 60 Minutes.

The administration maintains that it cannot find any evidence that the conversation about an Iraq-9/11 tie-in ever took place. …

[Clarke]: “The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, ‘I want you to find whether Iraq did this.’ Now he never said, ‘Make it up.’ But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this. “I said, ‘Mr. President. We’ve done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There’s no connection.’ “He came back at me and said, “Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there’s a connection.’ And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report.”

Clarke continued, “It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. … It got bounced and sent back saying, ‘Wrong answer. … Do it again.’

Billmon has a great segment loaded with context and more links. And do tip the bartender; he’s the best.

As an afterthought, I’m not sure how long the chimp handlers can keep their boy away from an actual press conference for the rest of the campaign with shit like this finally coming down the pike. If Mumblechump can barely handle being gummed by Russert, even a docile press is going to spook him. His usual Francisco Franco events with tv-frame friendly backdrops and applausebots who don’t understand English are just making him look even more dispensible. I better get more popcorn.