Richard Clarke

The campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain are engaging in an angry exchange today over Obama's remarks to Jake Tapper yesterday in which he talked about the role of law enforcement in combating terrorism.

In the interview, Obama said, "[I]t is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. And there has been no evidence on their part that we can't.

"And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated."

The McCain campaign responded with a call in which McCain's senior foreign policy adviser Randy Schuenemann said, "Once again we have seen that Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mindset. He brings the attitude, the failures of judgment, the weakness and the misunderstanding of the nature of our adversaries, and the dangers posed by them to a series of policy positions."  read more »

Eliot Spitzer is announcing this morning that Richard Clarke, the former White House national coordinator for security and counter-terrorism, is endorsing his plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain New York driver's licenses.

"In the interim, states should act to register immigrants, legal and illegal, who use our roadways as New York is doing now," Clarke says in a statement just distributed to reporters at the governor's press conference.