brooks: At the moment, it's weird having an administration that is soaring abroad but is earthbound at home.

even during the Watergate investigation assistant Watergate special prosecutor Richard Davis -- who was tasked with investigating various dirty tricks operations -- was investigating Rove, quizzing Nixon's staffers about Rove's role in various dirty tricks operations.

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The top counter-terrorism advisor, Clarke was briefing the highest government officials, including President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the aftermath of 9/11. "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts Clarke, "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 [the 9/11 attacks],'" he tells Stahl.

Clarke goes on to explain what he believes was the reason for the focus on Iraq. "I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection [between Iraq and Al Qaeda] but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying, 'We've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection,'" says Clarke.

As we've noted, there were two bills -- one which would fund the $87 billion by rescinding a portion of the president's tax cut, another which would fund it by going $87 billion in to debt. Kerry voted for the first, the latter passed.

The Dems were clear at the time that they weren't going to let the $87 billion go unfunded. They were trying to force a change in how it was funded and force some assurances that the administration would cut loose some of its more hopeless policies -- both of which would be vastly better than what happened.