He Was Right
In a world dominated by uncertainty, having made a correct prediction is no proof of having had the right underlying model. Maybe the guy who was right when almost everyone else was wrong just drew to an inside straight. And of course every bureaucrat thinks his political masters would have been well-advised to take his expertise more seriously than they did.
Still, the past performance sheet has to count for something. Someone who got something important right when most other people didn’t deserves to be listened to. And those who didn’t listen to him before he was proven right by events can legitimately be asked whether their refusal to do so was a mistake.
Every single person who is called upon to defend Richard Clarke should just say, “He was right, wasn’t he?”
It’s really that simple. He said it was going to happen, nobody believed him and it happened. He’s not the one with a credibility problem.