Rice said Clarke "left when he did not become deputy director of homeland security."

The interview has been the focus of much attention — drawing nearly 1.2 million views on YouTube and earning the show its best ratings in nearly three years.

Rice questioned the value of the dialogue.

"I think this is not a very fruitful discussion," she said. "We've been through it. The 9/11 commission has turned over every rock and we know exactly what they said."

Let's clarify something here. To become "deputy director of homeland security," the non-promotion that Clarke supposedly left over, you need a Department of Homeland Security, said department doesn't exist until November of 2002. Clarke was still the number one guy at the time of the September 11 attacks, and has repeatedly stated he tried to get meetings with the Bush White House to get them up to speed and get a plan for dealing with Al-Q prior to everything going to shit.

Basically Condi is saying Clarke wasn't fired, they just assigned all his work away from him and left him with a desk with nothing on it, which amounts to the same thing but keeps paying him. It does not answer the question about why he was blown off January to September, especially in light of things like the infamous PDB.