Not to beat a dead horse but....

Just how afraid is Bush and Cheney that the people will hold them responsible for 9/11? As I recall, up to the time of the attack on the WTC, GWB had taken more vacation days than any president in modern history. He had spent more days at Crawford than at the WH. But afterwards, it was like he got very serious. He started coming on TV just about every day. After the fact, he appeared to be working very hard...at least for a while.

I have always thought that this was something they were very concerned about. But it seems they had weathered the storm...until General Clark just brought it up again in the last couple of days. Is this a legitimate question that the public should be asking? Who is really responsible for failing to protect our country on 9/11? Is it the fault of the CIA? Is it the fault of Osama and no one else? Is it Bill Clinton's fault? Or is it the responsibility of the CinC to protect our nation? Was it a massive breakdown in intelligence or was it a simple matter of negligence and incompetence by the person at the top?

It's Bush's responsibility. He's president.

Clark said it better, and at more length, but that was the point.

Bush is going to have a hard time getting away from that truth. There's a NYT article in LBN about Rice blaming past administrations, but the article does a good job of pointing out how very little was done, and how little Bush talked about terrorism, from his inauguration through Sept.

When Condoleeza Rice said right after the towers were hit that none in the administration had any idea that this could happen, I knew she was lying. Either she was lying or she was incredibly uniformed and lacking any imagination whatsoever.

This was right out of a Tom Clancy book. The particular title is escaping me, but the airline disaster plot is Clancy's. An airliner full of people crashed into the Capitol building during a joint session of Congress. That's how Jack Ryan got to be president.

If the possibility is in American popular fiction, why didn't the feds have a clue?

Proved she didn't have the "Intelligence" or imagination to do the job.

...is of secondary concern to me. Of primary concern is making those responsible accountable, and to that end, I applaud Gen Clark's recent statements.

It might not be so dead. Don't forget that one of the Republican campaign strategies for '04 is to come to New York and use the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center site for their cynical political advantage.
Well, keeping on top of this subject might prevent them from doing that. In fact, might make them regret they came to New York at all.
I'm hoping to see some before and after pictures of the WTC around town during the convention. What the site looked like before Bush and after Bush.

criminally negligent (at best!)

criminally incompetent.

asleep at the switch (at best!)

Sad to say, it is exponentially easier these days for a rightwinger to teflon-off various scandals. Liberal democrats can be stock and pilloried for the most minor offenses, but the rightards appear to be able to get away with the highest actual crimes. Why is this? I wish I knew.

There is a clear reason that President War is dragging his feet on cooperating with the 9/11 investigation. Obviously, he and his have something to hide. But watch the various scandals swirling about his purloined administration - CIA Leak-gate, 9/11, Nigerian Uranium, and see how his party and it's cohorts in the major media are deftly and methodically erasing them from the public mind.

These guys are pros. Sick, twisted and evil as it comes, but pros nonetheless.

If I recall correctly, during the transition period between administrations, Bill Clinton tried repeatedly to convince Bush that the real threat was osama and not hussein but he was ignored.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

on edit: dup

The reason I say this is that it HAS been taken out of the public discourse.

But media directed social engineering is a beautiful thing. Someday all they'll have to do when there is a Repub scandal is wave a little red white and blue flag. Eyes will glaze over and America will experience an inexplicable wave of civic religious fervor (christo-republican patriotism) and all memory will be effectively neuralized.

Oh.

That's already happening...

:think: