Sept. 11 commission a partisan farce

Son of Thunder

By John Brannon

If you haven’t been witness to any of the Sept. 11 commission public inquiries of former and present administration officials, you’ve missed quite a show. It’s a very humorous set of events.

Unfortunately, it has turned into a partisan “he said she said” match up, with some on the commission and a few of those who testified simply trying to make themselves look good.

First there was Dick Clarke, the former counter-terrorism Czar for the Clinton and Bush administrations. After plenty of well-deserved controversy surrounding his book, “Against All Enemies,” his private testimony before the commission, and a press briefing he gave in August 2002 to reporters from Fox, CNN, Time and others, anyone who was paying attention to the hearings was anxiously waiting to see what else he had to say.

Clarke started off by giving a two-minute apology to all the families who lost loved ones as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He apologized on behalf of the government that “failed” the families, on behalf of himself for not doing more to stop the attacks and on behalf of the administration for failing to see the signs pointing to this event.

To my recollection, Dick Clarke did not plan the World Trade Center bombings. To my recollection, Dick Clarke did not hijack a plane, let alone four planes. And to my recollection, Dick Clarke had nothing to do with the collapse of the World Trade Center, and the subsequent deaths of more than 3,000 people.

So Dick, do us all a favor and spare us the self-righteous garbage that seeks to make your self appear above reproach, because it is truly nauseating.

Then there were commissioners Bob Kerry and Richard Ben-Veniste trying to pin the attacks on the Bush administration in any way that they possibly could. In the most evident show of partisanship to date, they tried with no quarter to bully Condoleezza Rice into saying what they wanted.

Thankfully, while on the stand before the commission, Rice showed why she is one of the most brilliant women to ever set foot in Washington, and why she deserves consideration for the presidency in 2008 (sorry Hillary, the limelight is no longer yours). Every time democrats on the panel attacked her, trying to castigate the Bush administration for Sept. 11, she answered their questions in ways that left them seeking a way to quiet her response.

First, Richard Ben-Veniste tried to put words in her mouth about an Aug. 6 briefing document. Though trying to cut Rice’s complete answer short, she unabashedly persisted in telling the whole truth of the document.

Then, commissioner Kerry tried to twist her statements. Why did the Bush administration not respond to the October 2000 USS Cole bombings that killed 17 American servicemen, he asked?

“ How the hell could he (Bush) be tired [of responding to each incident on a case by case business],” he bellowed, in an effort to intimidate her.

Interesting that he never pressured Dick Clarke to say why the Clinton administration did not react. Unless they moved inauguration up three months, it seems as though Clinton had plenty of time to deal with the issue—though we all knew that wasn’t going to happen.

But Rice seemed to be the only person in the room not interested in directly passing blame to anyone. She never referred to Clinton’s administration—despite the fact several questions left doors open to slam his policies. Instead, she simply referred to previous policy.

She never made any ad homonym attacks, but instead focused on the issue. Conversely, Kerry was left whining, “It’s not fair Dr. Rice,” because she would not allow him to speak more. Uh—Bob, wasn’t this an inquiry of Rice?

I’m sure we’re going to see more of this as the weeks continue. The democrats on the panel are going to continue to grill Rice about why she and the rest of the Bush administration didn’t do more. But their tactics are getting old, even to many democrats.

They’ve come to realize what republicans have known about this panel all along. As Michael Janofsky of the New York Times put it, “Rice was a reminder of a nation still searching for someone—anyone—to blame for failures before the September 11 attacks.”

Let’s face facts. This panel is not about finding answers—as some tried to say early on. If it was, the panel would be pressuring Clinton to explain why he didn’t take Bin Laden from the Sudanese in 1996? But we have seen no such pressure. Instead, this panel is about election year politics, and democrats will do anything to get George Bush out of office.

— This columnist can be reached at collegian@csufresno.edu