The Liberal Reaction to the 9/11 Commission Report

One has to feel a certain measure of sympathy for the Democratic Party as it heads to Boston for its National Convention this week, coming as it does on the heels of the release of the Final Report of the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on events leading up to the War in Iraq.  As hard as they tried to use the preliminary tidbits of information about the Commission’s findings to pin the blame for the terrorist attacks on the Bush Administration, their efforts are now shown to have been in vain. All of their attempts to use the Intelligence Committee Report to show that George Bush intentionally misled the American people in justifying the War in Iraq have been a wasted effort, except to the diehard few who now feel that even bipartisan investigative bodies cannot be open and honest. This does not mean that the Democratic gunslingers, especially those in Hollywood and in the media, will quit trying to spin the reports to suit their agendas.

For example, cartoonist Ed Stein of The Rocky Mountain News had this cartoon in Saturday’s edition, which implies that the Commission’s report included findings that would prove harmful to the Bush White House. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that does not preclude the liberal media from continuing to imply that the 9/11 Report was indeed damaging; that it somehow supports earlier claims from the Left that the Bush Administration was negligent for not preventing the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile, on Friday, July 23, Denver’s other newspaper (The Denver Post) carried on its editorial page articles from liberal columnists William Raspberry, Richard Cohen (both of the Washington Post), and Maureen Dowd (who needs no introduction). Mr. Raspberry, in his column headlined Sept. 11 families "deserve better", wrote:

For all its somber-faced seriousness, the report of the Sept. 11 commission turns out to be a child-like explanation of what went so tragically wrong nearly three years ago.

It acknowledges the obvious, but it manages to avoid any semblance of individual responsibility.

Apparently, Mr. Raspberry believes that somehow the grief of the 9/11 families would have been lessened if the Commission had found an individual scapegoat to turn over to the crowd for crucifixion. He goes on to conclude: 

The commission is not representative of America or of the families of those who died on 9/11. It is an archetypically establishment body, consisting of people who, with the exception of a token white woman, look exactly like me. They are all lawyers or politicians, or both—and all acceptable to Vice President Cheney, who didn’t want a commission in the first place. The result is facile, mischievous, and disingenuous.

Apparently, in Mr. Raspberry’s mind, a group of office workers, airline pilots, firefighters, and janitors would have gotten it right. Or is he really saying that if the committee had been comprised totally of media columnists who are inherently intellectually superior, like he is, the result would have been different? I guess I partially agree, but only in that the final report would have been delayed another year, unanimity would have never been achieved, and all of the highly classified information that the commission dealt with would have been published in every newspaper in America and the world. Their inflated egos would not have permitted anything else.

 Not to be outdone, Maureen Dowd is claiming that the Commission’s Report illustrates how George Bush really screwed things up by bombing “the wrong Ira_.”  She writes that because the report indicates that the 9/11 terrorists may have passed through Iran on their way to infamy, the Bush Administration would have been more justified in attacking Iran rather than Iraq, but that for expedience’ sake, he picked the weaker target. She totally contradicts herself when she writes:

Though the Sept. 11 panel found no “collaborative” relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, it found one between Iran and al-Qaeda –though no evidence that Iranian officials knew in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Poor Ms. Dowd, after all this time, still cannot comprehend the meaning of the term “collaborative link” in reference to the attacks on 9/11. Let’s see if we can keep this easy for her.  A “collaborative link” would have existed if a Party A (in this case Iraq or Iran) had played an active role in the planning for, had intentionally provided funding for, or had actually participated in the 9/11 attacks which were carried out by al Qaeda (Party B). It implies that the Party A would have known, to some extent at least, the “who, what, when, and how” of the operation, to use journalistic terms. Both the 9/11 Commission as well as the Bush Administration had stated that there was no evidence of such a link between al Qaeda and Iraq. The Commission went a step further in saying that a collaborative link between Iran and al Qaeda may have existed, but that this link cannot be proven. The Administration has never claimed that either (collaborative) link existed.

Richard Cohen did not attack the 9/11 Commission Report per se (yet), but his column describes how the anthrax attacks that took place shortly after 9/11 resulted in a state of panic in America. I don’t know about you, but the only panic that I witnessed was that of the TV news talking heads (including all of them at FOX News) telling us over and over again in frantic tones how afraid we should all be of any white powders, and that we were all in grave danger, but stay calm (it’s a good thing we didn’t have an early snow in 2001). Cohen goes on to say that he was panicked, and that his panicked state was the only reason that he supported the Bush Administration’s argument for going to war in Iraq. Maybe there is something in the makeup of many media types that makes them super-sensitive, over-emotional, and therefore easily panicked. However, I am sure that it is nothing that could not be cured by a month-long stint in Iraqor Afghanistan as an imbedded reporter with the US Army or Marines. How about it, Mr. Cohen? If Geraldo can do it, you can too.

There is no doubt that during the four days of the Democratic Convention, as well as afterwards, we will here many disparaging remarks about the Reports that were issued by the 9/11 Commission, as well as by the Senate Intelligence Committee. There are two reasons for this. The first is that both reports failed to point fingers at specific individuals for their failure to prevent the attacks of 9/11 and to find WMD in Iraq.  Secondly, both reports totally refuted many of the accusatory talking points that the Democrats were routinely using in the election campaign. The reports make the vitriolic anti-Bush statements that had been made by noted Democrats such as Howard Dean, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and Tom Daschle look foolish. Because of this, many of these gunslingers have lost their last measure of credibility with those Americans who had listened closely to what they were saying. It would be surprising if any of the main speakers at the Convention will again use brash statements like “the Bush Administration lied about WMD” or the “Bush Administration intentionally misled Americans”.  On the other hand, they might continue trying to push this agenda by minimizing the efforts and sincerity of those who served on these 9/11 Commission.

Although this latter approach may hearten diehard Democrats, I firmly believe that most Americans will easily see through the rhetoric and demagoguery, and will reject them outright as deceptive grandstanding.

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