The 9/11 Commission Report 

The 9/11 Commission Report

After the 9/11 Commission issued its final report, there was a lot of analysis on the air, in print, and here in the blogosphere which seemed to largely reach the conclusion that the responsibility for our country not being better prepared to prevent or respond to such an attach fit about equally on the shoulders of the Bush and Clinton administrations. And I suppose that's a fair conclusion if you ignore a couple of things, notably the efforts of the Clinton administration in its last couple of years to develop intelligence on the whereabouts and plans of Osama and Al-Qaeda and devise a plan for dealing with them, the efforts of the outgoing Clinton administration to share what it had learned about Bin-Laden and why they believed he and Al Qaeda presented perhaps the greatest threat to our country's security, and the Bush Administration's all but total disregard for all they were told.

It's not that the Bushies didn't know about the threat; they didn't want to know. Infamously, the National Security briefing Condi Rice was prepared to give on 9/11 emphasized the threat to this nation from ballistic missiles and made no mention of Al-Qaeda. Infamously, the noted August briefing outlining the immediate threat posed by Al-Qaeda on our shores with hijacked planes apparently never reached the President's attention.

It is particularly worth noting these things in light of the VP's remarks last week about the risk we run if we vote wrong. I don't know why these people keep running on 9/11. It happened on their watch. It was their failure. It should be their shame. But instead of resigning in disgrace as they should have, they are asking for us to keep them in office, in recognition of their fine job.

Via Atrios, look here for a summary of the report's conclusions and its import.