I'm Back... and Almost Well
This pesky ear problem has been hanging on for more than three weeks, but it seems to finally be losing the fight. When I get busy or distracted, I don't seem to notice it. Only when I think about it does it bother me too badly. I have to thank Allegra, Flozave and the antibiotic Z-Pack for my return to life.
I had the chance to see Condaleeza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission last week, and she certainly impresses me with her knowledge, charisma and restraint. I'm sure some members of the committee, as well as most Dems, wanted to see Dr. Rice crumble from the questioning. Instead, she was strong and unfaltering.
Because the anti-Bush crowd didn't draw blood from Condi's testimony, they chose to demand the release of one of the President's classified daily intelligence briefings. They knew it would hold the evidence of Bush's neglect of our defense. The Administration released it. What did it reveal? Neal Boortz words it better than I could.
"The Bush administration caved to the 9/11 Blame Committee on Saturday and declassified that August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing. Immediately, the Democrats and their buddies in the media jumped on this as some sort of smoking gun... some indication that Bush knew that the Islamic terrorists were going to hijack airliners and slam them into buildings. Truth is, the memo is nothing of the sort. As much as Richard Ben-Veniste would like the memo to be a warning, it's not. There was no warning before the attacks of 9/11. Had there been, we could have stopped it. There wasn't, so we didn't.
"As the president correctly pointed out yesterday, the memo contained no actionable intelligence that would have prevented an attack. All it contained was historical information related to a possible attack. It also was entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.' Unfortunately, it said nothing about when, where or how. Absent that crucial information, there was nothing the United States government could have done to prevent what happened. Nothing.
"Besides, what do these people propose President Bush should have done, anyway? People are reading history in the wrong direction here. Go back to before 9/11...and imagine this: on August 6, 2001, President Bush gives an address to the nation in which he announces that he just received a Presidential Daily Briefing that said Osama Bin Laden was determined to strike in the U.S. In response, he will be shutting down all commercial air traffic and attempting to root out all potential Al-Qaeda operatives. Can you just imagine the outrage? If you remember, the economy was in somewhat of a funk at that time. Think what a shutdown in air travel would have done, and think about the damnation that would be directed toward Bush. What if Bush had only called for drastic increases in airport security? The airline infrastructure wasn't prepared to handle such a thing in 2001. The delays would have been horrendous and the calls for Bush's hide just as large.
"There was a completely different public mindset prior to 9/11. Most Americans didn't recognize Islamic terrorism as the threat that it was. If Bush had taken some grave measures prior to 9/11 just because a memo said that Osama bin Laden might try to hijack an airliner, the public simply wouldn't have stood for it. Simply put, there was no public will to fight the war on terrorism before 9/11. That political environment did not exist.
"Yes, there were intelligence failures. There were legal and logistical reasons why the CIA and the FBI and other law enforcement agencies couldn't or didn't share information. If you want to place blame for these failures you're going to have to go back quite a few presidents. When, for instance, are we really going to look at the weakening of our intelligence structure under Jimmy Carter?
"The truly important thing here is what has been done after 9/11. There's a problem here though. Virtually all of the polls show very high marks for Bush's actions post-9/11. So, what's the point in highlighting the successes of the war on terror? It will only boost Bush's popularity. If your goal is to swing voter sentiment against Bush, you focus on what happened before 9/11, not after.
"Lost in all this is how the Clinton administration, which did virtually nothing to fight terrorism for 8 years, is getting a complete pass. Clinton turned down a direct offer to hand over Osama Bin Laden and yet Bush is the one that is being raked over the coals for somehow not doing enough. The reason is we are in an election year, and the Bush-hating Democrats want to politicize the tragedies of September 11th. Where's the outrage about that? The Republicans wouldn't be able to get away with that for a second.
"These 9/11 Commission hearings are becoming a partisan waste of time. Nothing is going to bring back the 3,000 people that died that day. All we can do is what we are doing now, which is to keep it from happening again."
Here's the complete text of the August 6, 2001 memo, courtesy FoxNews.
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