Meanwhile, Back at the News
By Robert A. Hahn Posted in Breaking News — Comments (93) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Any time I see the media waving a bright, shiny object in front of us, my first thought is to wonder what it is
they don't want us to look at. To those of us who have a few miles on us, the ridiculous spectacle going on in
Crawford, Texas right now is just a re-run of 1970's antiwar hoo-hah, as brought to us by the 1970's antiwar
media and their "newsmakers" from the George Soros Tabernacle Choir.
Yes, they're all antiwar, and yes, they want to pummel the Republican in the White House in whatever way
they can, and I suppose that getting their hands on a genuine Grieving Mother to wave in our faces is not
something they have to play with every day, but even so...
One has to wonder whether we'd all be speaking German now if television had been around in the 1940's.
Maybe not. Can anyone even imagine the media giving voice to a distraught, grieving mother who lost her son at Normandy,
demanding that the war be ended? The bunch of them would have been shot.
But never mind that. The real issue is what's happening that is so important that the media needs to wave
a bright, shiny object in front of us to keep us from looking.
[UPDATED 8/15] More below the fold
Oh, here it is. I'll be darned. It turns out that at least one of our intelligence operations was sufficiently on
the ball that they identified Mohammad Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and two other future 9/11 hijackers as an al-Qa'eda cell
operating in the United States. They did this over a year before Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World
Trade Center's north tower, and al-Shehhi hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, which struck the south tower.
As you'll recall, there was a lot of consternation and finger-pointing over the fact that our vaunted Intelligence
Agencies had not seen this attack coming in time to prevent it. We even had one of those "blue ribbon panels," the so-called
9/11 Commission, investigate what went wrong that could have allowed such a complex plan involving so many people
to come to fruition without being detected.
After huffing and puffing at us for several weeks on the television, they finally issued a big report saying it was all caused
by mumble mumble and we need to knock heads and reorganize and make more bureaucracy so that it never happens again.
One of the things that it turns out they did not tell us was that "the Atta Boys" had in fact been detected; had been
identified as an al-Qa'eda cell; and that the people who did this work wanted very badly to tell the FBI about it,
so the FBI could go nab them, a year before the 9/11 attacks.
They didn't tell us that part. And they didn't tell us that the people who wanted to warn the FBI were waved off by
lawyers, who said that they weren't allowed to share such information with domestic law enforcement.
The big star of these hearings, at least as far as the media was concerned, was one Jamie Gorelick, pictured at
right, who during this "Massive Intelligence Failure" was the #2 official at the Justice Department.
Lo and behold, Ms. Gorelick is not only a big-time expert on Intelligence matters, she is also the author of what has
come to be known as the "wall of separation memo" that is the very reason that the lawyers in the Pentagon would
not allow the information about Mohammad Atta and his al-Qa'eda cell to be passed to the FBI.
In other words, in addition to being a big Media Star and an aggressive questioner of other people's actions, she's
the very reason this Massive Intelligence Failure occurred.
No wonder the media is waving a bright shiny object in our faces. The "news" is that the number two official in
the Clinton Justice Department is directly responsible for the failure of the government to act on intelligence
that in fact it had... intelligence that if passed to the right people would have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
Well, we can't have that. Not in our media. That might harm The Party. Worse, it might harm
Hillary Clinton, the media's Next President of the United States. For it turns out that Jamie Gorelick was a long time
friend and confidant of Hillary, and Hillary is reportedly responsible for Gorelick's placement in the
#2 slot at the Justice Department. That is something we must now investigate more thoroughly.
We are not going to hear much about this in the media. Instead we're going to get Damsels in Distress,
antiwar demonstrations, and whatever other bright shiny objects the media can think up to avoid having us learn about the
Clinton Administration's quite deliberate efforts to impede communication between our intelligence-gathering
operations and our law enforecement machinery... impediments which led directly, we now find out, to 3,000 people getting killed.
Over at ChronWatch, Gregory Borse
begins what will have to be an effort by the right side of the blogosphere to pursue this story. We need that because nothing
that reflects badly on the Clinton Administration — or which might harm Hillary Clinton's prospects in 2008 —
is going to be of interest to the Democratic Party activists who pretend to be journalists in our mainstream media. If this
is going to be investigated and publicized, we are going to have to do it ourselves.
And it is definitely worth doing, because this is all part of something much bigger than 9/11. The Clinton Administration did not set out to create an
intelligence failure on a terrorist attack. That was an unfortunate side effect, one they most certainly did not see coming. As Borse tells us,
the Clinton Administration began working in 1995 to re-organize the ways in which intelligence agencies like
the CIA and FBI were allowed to communicate with each other and with U.S. Attorneys Offices investigating foreign
and domestic espionage cases. The Gorelick Memo itself is an outgrowth of these policies, which were erected under
Clinton’s "Presidential Decision Directive 24."
In pursuing this story, it may be that we will get some help. In the months prior to Congressman Weldon's revelations
concerning the "Able Danger" group that identified the Atta Boys in 1999, we were subjected to nonstop leaking of classified information from various quarters of the State Department and the CIA, who have apparently decided to wage jihad-by-leak against the Bush Administration. I have no way of knowing where Congressman Weldon got his information, but perhaps somewhere in Spookland there are people who feel that fairness demands that they now make a few leaks of their own. If so, it won't be the mainstream media that reports on them. It will have to be us on the right side of the blogosphere. Time to get to work.
UPDATE August 15, 2005 10:00 AED
In the interval since this story was first posted, Time has indeed gone to work. The magazine tells us:
In a particularly dramatic scene in Weldon’s book, Countdown to Terror, the Pennsylvania Republican described personally handing to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, just after Sept. 11, an Able Danger chart produced in 1999 identifying Atta. But Weldon told TIME he’s no longer certain Atta’s name was on that original document.
As intended, this was taken by many as meaning that Weldon is backing away from the entire story. Michelle Malkin, for example, "walks back", telling us:
- Even so, those of us who reported unequivocally that Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers a year before the 9/11 attacks simply were not on solid ground.
John Podhoretz makes similar noises over at NRO.
I am not going to do the same. Despite the magnificent CYA memo put out by the 9/11 Commission justifying their failure to include information concerning the Able Danger program, the main issue is still on the table, which is did the U.S. government have information in its possession a year before the 9/11 attacks that could have prevented those attacks, and was that information kept from the FBI by bureaucratic restrictions imposed by the Clinton Administration under PDD-24 and the so-called "Gorelick memo"?
The answer to which still appears to be: Yes.
Someone else can worry about whether the 9/11 Commission misunderstood the nature of the Able Danger program and therefore discounted its findings, or were not properly told of its findings, or whether Dieter Snell — who interviewed the Naval Officer who made these claims — had a personal interest in making Able Danger "go away."
I care far less about that than I do whether the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented, but weren't because of bureaucratic roadblocks to information-sharing. That is what is important here, not whether some people are covering their rear ends after the fact.
Mike Kelly isn't "walking back" either. Instead of folding his cards after reading a phrase in Time magazine, he interviewed one of the Able Danger team members:
On the phone last week, the former Able Team member I interviewed told a depressing story of that cooperation that never took place.
His story, he says, tells us just how close U.S. officials could have come to breaking up the 9/11 plot before it unfolded. But there was one problem: The U.S. government did not want to hear what this sleuth and his 10 teammates had to say - before and even after the 9/11 plot.
By mid-2000, the Able Danger team knew it had important information about a possible terrorist plot. Because of a peculiar series of computer links that went through Brooklyn, the team began referring to the four future hijackers as the "Brooklyn cell." Their movements and communications were raising too many suspicions.
The Able Danger sleuth, whose interview with me was arranged by the staff of Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., asked that his name not be revealed so he could maintain his top-secret counter-terror role. He emerged from the shadows of spying and intelligence analysis last week because he wanted to set the record straight.
One of his targets is the 9/11 commission. The commission's staff, he says, ignored him when he approached them on two occasions to spell out Able Danger's work.
Another target are Pentagon lawyers. The sleuth says he and other Able Danger team members became so concerned during the summer of 2000 that they asked their superiors in the Pentagon's special operations command for permission to approach the FBI. Their superiors approached Pentagon legal experts. Those experts turned down the request.
It's probably going to be a while before this "all comes out in the wash." In the meantime, we can expect robust CYA activity from everyone who had a hand in dropping the ball. It should not surprise any of us that our bureaucrats and politicians want us to think that they could not possibly have missed something like this, but since they louse up almost everything else they do, there is no reason to believe them.
The Congress needs to find out who these Able Danger team members were, and get them in front of a hearing.
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"...Democratic Party activists who pretend to be journalists..."
the left wing wackos are preventing a serious look at why the military is having such a hard time defeating a 3rd world country.
and there was always more to the Sandy Berger story but our "justice" dept. let him slide...
This story should be the top story on every blog on the net.
The NY Times ran daily headlines of Abu Graihb and Guantanamo for weeks and weeks on end. This story is obviously bigger, bigger, bigger than either of those.
Follow your own advice, and stop having stories about Cindy Sheehan at the top of the page!
Make this a headline at Red State and keep it there for weeks. Please!
And I especially like the way you presented it with the photographs. I'll save my commentary about the content for later, but the presentation, length and content of this story are excellent. It's well-written and to the point, and the length is just right for the subject you're discussing. This is what the blogosphere should be. You do your best work in the morning, Nick.
Even though I knew the 9/11 commission errata was being given the MSM nothing to see here just move along treatment, I hadn't made the connection to the 24 hr Sheehan-Natalee-isn't there-another-hurricane-somewhere coverage.
Good call. Clinton and Berger knew. Gorelick knew while she was investigating the attack. Shameful. Even treasonous.
Back in the 50s, it was not until Whittaker Chambers gained editorial tenure at Time magazine that he was able to expose the high-ranking officials working for Moscow within the US government. The subsequent hearings have been watered down and transformed by academia and the MSM into the Evil of McCarthyism.
I hope blogs and the internet can keep this stranglehold on history from happening again. This time around, we don't need to be an editor at Time. Red State will do.
Sandy's pants again?
I suspect he walked away with some very important documents in order to do some serious CYA. He fully understood the rules regarding how classified information was to be handled, it isn't like those papers "accidently" got stuffed in his pants. He was hiding something.
Nice to know the justice department gave him a very light slap on the wrist and he gets his security clearance back in a couple of years.
"For it turns out that Jamie Gorelick was a long time friend and confidant of Hillary, and Hillary is reportedly responsible for Gorelick's placement in the #2 slot at the Justice Department. That is something we must now investigate more thoroughly."
Because that is what is really important in your post. The rest of the commentary obscures it a bit.
More on this, please - a LOT more (Gorelick's responsibility and the Hillary connection).
WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug 12 -
Today Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, released the following response to a statement by the former 9/11 Commission regarding the ABLE DANGER operation.
"ABLE DANGER was about linkages and associations of individuals identified with direct links to Al-Qaeda and not about dates and times.
To clarify, ABLE DANGER was a Department of Defense planning effort, tasked to Special Operations Command (SOCOM) by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The task assigned to ABLE DANGER was to identify and target Al-Qaeda on a global basis and, through the use of cutting edge technology (data-mining, massive parallel processing, neural networking and human factors analysis) and enhanced visualization and display tools, present options for leaders (national command authority) to manipulate, degrade or destroy the global Al-Qaeda infrastructure.
The 9/11 Commission has released multiple statements over the past week, each of which has significantly changed - from initially denying ever being briefed to acknowledging being briefed on both operation ABLE DANGER and Mohammed Atta. The information was omitted primarily because they found it to be suspect despite having been briefed on it two times by two different military officers on active duty. Additionally, the 9/11 Commission also received documents from the Department of Defense on ABLE DANGER.
Despite their varied statements, two critical questions remain unanswered.
1) Why did the Department of Defense fail to pass critical information obtained through ABLE DANGER to the FBI between the summer and fall of 2000?
2) Why did the 9/11 Commission staff fail to properly follow-up on the three separate occasions when they received information on ABLE DANGER and Mohammed Atta?
I will continue to push for a full accounting of the historical record so that we may preclude these types of failures from happening again."
###
Yawn. The conspiracy folks on both sides of the aisle have flushed intelligent conversation in this country down the toilet.
Despite the comment in your article, the New York Times was the first to report on this story and most subsequent reports, like ChronWatch appear to be based on that.
AP was the first major outlet but even then it was derivative from Curt Weldon's hometown newspaper and an article in Government Security News magazine.
They were the first major newspaper to realize that they were going to get scooped on a big story if they didn't write about it. All they had to do (to get the basic facts) was stop ignoring Congressman Curt Weldon.
The fact here: Clinton admin policies meant Atta was not allowed to be reported to the FBI.
Gorelick did this.
The theory here: Gorelick was appointed at Hillary's request.
I want to see evidence for the theory, and a lot of publicity for the fact.
- I want to see evidence for the theory
Me too. Somebody with access to Lexis-Nexis would be real handy, to see what was said around the time Gorelick was appointed. Although in the end I'd bet it ends up being another one of those "Who hired Craig Livingstone?" deals where everybody knows it was Hillary's friend, but there are no suspects or witnesses as to who exactly did it.
You imply the MSM is ignoring the Gorelick/Able Danger story because it is just too hot for the patrons behind the MSM. Aren't you doing the same thing by pivoting away from the Sheehan story (the personal attacks on her are not playing well with the general public, surprise surprise, and they look strangely familiar...O'Neill, Clark, Wilson/Plame....) and to a story that is, at this point, almost a week old? Not to say it is not an important story, but your self-righteousness and self-certainty are really quite silly, given your own inclination to pivot away from stinky stories. As if we all just listened to you, we could maintain our focus on the news that really matters, as defined by....YOU!
the 9-11 commission, when she should have been testifying.
Gorelick had a reason to dismiss the able danger stuff-because it made her and her policy look like the horrible move that it was-a move that placed the country at greater risk-but you won't her Ms Gorelick saying that.
More Americans died on 9/11/01 than have died in Iraq.
- Nice to know the justice department gave him a very light slap on the wrist
Not exactly. He hasn't been sentenced yet.
I know he made an plea deal.
Maybe in light of this, they should rethink the sentencing agreement and make him talk.
you consider this post to be cogent and insightful. It isn't. It is a boorish, rambling collection of non sequiturs and phobias.
It has entirely possible that you have overstayed your welcome. Guests, like fish, stink after three days.
Didn't the 9/11 Commission say that they already had copies of what Sandy took? Well, I don't believe them anymore. I'm concerned that Sandy took copies with notes on them that we will now never see. Something like "POTUS says no on A.D. info." Rustling tinfoil, I know. But geez.
. . .the picture of Bill Bixby made me smile. Fine actor, died far too young.
Story selection is a key part of media bias, no doubt, but we already knew that. That Nick illustrates it with a story of such emotional importance might bring it home to some people who didn't already believe it, but I dout that.
So, this one story isn't all that important in itself. Pointing fingers at Gorelick and the Clintons won't undo the fact that evil terrorists attacked us.
So it's great that Nick (I'd say the most talented writer on this site) wrote this, but I wouldn't call this a world-shaking development.
In other words: I wouldn't recommend people start harping on this like Rep. Conyers does about a certain memo sent to PM Blair.
. . .the picture of Bill Bixby made me smile. Fine actor, died far too young.
What series or movie is that picture from?
doesn't it?
FTR, I'm perfectly willing to continue pummelling the media whore into the ground. Fortunately, I have my own blog I can do that on, so that I do not have to come here and play snitty with what other people's blogs cover.
Oh, and also, there's no moratorium on Sheehan coverage here. For the moment, we've said all we need to say. No need to give the media whore more undue media attention, and all.
... called The Magician.
... the strength of the revelations themeselves is a little too important to try so hard to tie it back to the motives of the media. We all know that what you're saying rings true, but I'd hate to see this devolve into a simple discussion of media bias.
So, while it's valid to go there, I hope that we don't go off into the weeds and lose control of the narrative. If we do, we'll end up like Michelle Malkin today (WRT Sheehan), defending our take on the story instead of hammering away at the facts.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=17039_Daily_Kos_Parasites&
;only
I think we found what Holly and teh rest of the DNC is reading for talking points. The KOSSACKS/Mediacrats are truly vile disgusting animals.
Sorry. I meant "The", not "teh". D'oh. Just got back from extended duty.
"4. We should not use the name of her son. Her son is a symbol of all sons who have been sacrificed for this useless and criminal war."
Yes, send him down the memory hole because he happened to AGREE with the war, and all.
Keep up the heat.
From yesterday's drama here, it is obvious the anti-war folks have found their golden girl and they are going to milk her as far as they can.
This country has been through a great tragedy in 9-11 and many hold blame and are not being held accountable. That must change if we are to ever do this intellegence stuff better.
As for this war effort, we can't quit and we must not lose. Most importantly, we must never let our troops feel the disdain and shame Vietnam vets felt coming home from the South Pacific. If Jane Fonda, George Soros and Cindy Sheehan have their way that will happen though. And we simply can not let it.
We also willingly went to Iraq.
And we can leave Iraq. And the body count in Iraq grows (unfortunately) every day. You seem to think this is important. I don't. We had little control over the 9-11 attacks. We put our soldiers into Iraq knowing they could be killed.
You are trying to justify the death of about 2000 American lives that we put in harms way with the deaths of another 3000 American lives that we did not?
Really?
Don't you guys want to get back on that all important Natalee Holloway story? Talk about shiny objects. At least the Cindy Sheehan story opens a national dialogue. What are we to say for 14 months of Lacey Peterson coverage?
HollyHunter: "You imply the MSM is ignoring the Gorelick/Able Danger story because it is just too hot for the patrons behind the MSM. Aren't you doing the same thing by pivoting away from the Sheehan story (the personal attacks on her are not playing well with the general public, surprise surprise, and they look strangely familiar...O'Neill, Clark, Wilson/Plame....) and to a story that is, at this point, almost a week old? Not to say it is not an important story, but your self-righteousness and self-certainty are really quite silly, given your own inclination to pivot away from stinky stories. As if we all just listened to you, we could maintain our focus on the news that really matters, as defined by....YOU!"
If you can't see the difference between a media preening "grieving mom" out to bash the Bush administation and the 911 Commission's burial and/or white washing of its investigation into 911, then you need to get some glasses.
Who cares about Sheehan's nonsense? The story is a flash in the pan and will only have legs for as long as its allowed to run. The 911 Commission covering up for the Clinton administration is Big News. Once Americans wrap their minds around the fact that the 911 Commission is a fraud, Sheehan won't even be remembered. Playing into the MSM's feeding frenzy on Sheehan while the Able Danger report is ignored is exactly what the MSM wants. And I for one think that the blogosphere shouldn't be playing the MSM's game.
Why would the current Administration not investigate the Sandy Berger Felony with full force? Why plea bargain? (To my knowledge regardig sentencing, the terms are set, just the length and monetary amount are to be set.)
Why is the majority of Ashcroft's testimony before the Commission still classified?
Rep. Weldon was on Fox this A.M. and reveals that their are 15 boxes of information and four witnesses that the Commission refused to look at, yet he seems to only want the Commission's Staff to come up under scrutiny, taking the heat off of the Commissioners. Strange.
I am not an expert or pundit, but am waiting to hear others who are discuss this angle. This looks like the Senate and Congress, Media, and both Parties joining together to cover their collective Political Asses from the worst attack in our Country's history. I hope I am wrong and enough evidence emerges to sway my current thinking, but right now this entire mess stinks to high Heaven.
Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton, Hillary and Newt, Silence from the Republican Party about Able Danger, it is like I am living in Bizario World.
Presidential Decision Directive 24 radically changed the way criminal and intelligence investigations were handled during the Clinton administration. PDD-24 caused ALL such investigations to pass up the chain of command to a White House controlled bureaucracy; Gorelick's "wall of separation" memo was a direct operational expression of President Clinton's PDD-24.
But PDD-24 was only intended to shield President Clinton and the Democratic Party from criminal investigation. Massive illegal Chinese political donations were flowing to the Democrats and massive transfers of secret American technology were flowing to the Chinese. By compartmentalizing and controlling all data from all sources, the Clinton administration succeeded in avoiding criminal investigation of their illegal activity.
Unfortunately, they succeeded too well, compartmentalizing and controlling the 09/11 plot investigation out of existence, lost in the bureaucracy that Clinton and the Democrats deliberately created to obscure and obfuscate.
But the American people got a wake-up call on 09/11, and wanted to know how a small bunch of terrorists were able to do so much damage. The 09/11 Commission had Democratic stooges (BenVeniste and Gorelick) that mostly succeeded in covering Democratic Party tracks, but there were a few loose ends. And that is why Sandy Bergler took secret documents home in his underpants and destroyed them.
...was one of my favorite TV shows. Go figure I ended up being a magician..
Years later, I had the opportunity to meet Bill Bixby. A class act all the way. Tragic early death.
That Sandy Berger tried to Cover His A** by literally Covering His A**. Unless he stuffed the documents down the front.
The more I see the more I am becoming convinced that open source jouranalism will be the wave of the future. Maybe open source investigation should follow?
The Internet was conceived and built as a collaboration tool, it looks like it will now fulfill that promise.
your curtain call. We had enough of you yesterday but you apparently aren't willing to leave well enough alone.
Aren't you really proud of yourself. Going out in a fizzle of half-baked, ill-informed invective rather than being CENSORED?
- We had little control over the 9-11 attacks.
I take it you didn't read the article. That's a shame.
- I wouldn't recommend people start harping on this like Rep. Conyers does about a certain memo sent to PM Blair.
I agree. Hence my "call to action" that we start playing journalist on the Internet with this. There is far more to this than Gorelick's memo. The mind boggles at what it means that the Clinton Administration was trying on purpose to hobble the ability of our espionage-watchers to talk with our crime-fighters. Just what was going on that they didn't want our law enforcement types to find out about?
That's the $64,000 question. Mr. Borse suggests that it had something to do with the Chinese government shoveling money into the Democratic Party. I don't know. But I bet enough people trying to find out will find out, especially if we get a little help from agencies that have no names. Whatever it was that they were trying to stifle investigation of will, I am sure, be at least as big a story as the fact that their meddling allowed a terrorist attack to take place when it could have been prevented.
the wikipedia for Gorelick and there is actually a note in there about the Wall saying:
Conservative media pundits such as Rush Limbaugh have accused Gorelick of helping to construct a 'wall' during her years at the justice department. However, government reports cited in the wake of the Able Danger scandal appear to contradict such claims, asserting that the 'wall' has been in existence since the 80's and is in fact not one singular wall but a series of restrictions passed over the course of sixty years.
Do you know whatever happened to the second report? Wasn't that going to be published?
The promulgation of PDD-24 was announced in a press release by the White House. There is no doubt who did it and when.
the policy board?
I have to keep reading. Thanks for the links!
info so quick? Do blogs bypass having to wait?
example:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1461690/posts
...the second stop on the express.
In that story I was never sure what Sandy took home - originals or copies. Some asserted that the National Archives still have all the originals and Berger was merely given copies to review for his testimony. The counter story was that he was given original drafts with handwritten notes made before the final versions were prepared. It is alleged by some that these handwritten notes had embarassing info and that he destroyeed them for that reason. To this day I still don't know if he had originals or copies or if the Archives actually lost anything of which they don't have a copy or digital scan. I know this is a bit off topic but can anyone clarify this or point to someone who knows?
The policy of seperation came from the Carter days, not a new Clinton policy. It appears they were trying to loosen a bit, but not enough to do any good here.
Her own statements damn her with insane conspiracy theories involving ... "the Joooosssss!!!" (typical Dem loony) starting the Iraq War, the Secret Service planning to assassinate her, the Iraq War being conducted to prevent Saddam from nuking Israel, etc.
Sheer and unadulterated lunacy. The more media attention focuses on her, particularly with Fox and others just printing or publishing her own words, the less Americans will like her and her pals in the Democratic Party.
Unless you think America accepts anti-semitic conspiracy theories out of the DNC, Reps Jim Moran and Cynthia McKinney, etc.
Meanwhile, someone WILL pick this main story up. The contrast between DoD intel, which seems to have been 100% on the ball, and the CIA, which couldn't find it's rear end in the dark with both hands, is stunning.
CIA/State seem to be oriented around an episode of Law and Order, ironclad prosecutorial evidence or simply dismissing any evidence; DoD folks seem to have done a lot of imaginitive problem solving (papers published back in 1989 predicted fully loaded airliners as missiles to kill thousands in buildings by terrorists).
While I am willing to entertain any slur directed at President Peanuthead, I am suspicious of claims that are introduced with the phrase "The fact here" unless they are accompanied by cites. You got one?
My question for everyone on the right side is this. Do you believe that President really wants to discredit Clinton? President Bush doesn't sound like the sort that would want to damage the office of the President and that may be the reason they did not make more of the omission themselves since they also had the story since September 22, 2001.
This is why I believe this story will die quickly because the very big Right Side Blogs will get the word quietly that this story needs to die. Now we will find out just how independent we are. Does it matter to the Right Side of the Blogsphere whether the office of the President is damaged or is it more important that the Country survive?
I hope the answer is our Country is more important but with a measly 250 Visit average I cannot affect this story staying alive. No matter how much I want it to.
One depressing thing I notice is that the Right Side of the Blogsphere actually believes that Sheehan and the NARAL ad are important enough to waste time on. Take a look on the Corner to see the percentage of Able Danger posts to NARAL or Sheehan posts. Notice also that Michelle Malkin voted the most popular person on the Right is wasting time talking about NARAL and Sheehan as if any of that is nearly as important as Able Danger. Instapundit has mentioned the story once then poooof only the Captain has gotten the bit between his teeth and shook it like it needs to be shaken.
Beware this story getting buried by an administration that seems to believe that the Office of the Presidency is more important than the truth of the findings.
Pierre Legrand
- Do you believe that President really wants to discredit Clinton?
No. One of the things we have never had in this country is the banana republic practice of having the new El Presidente begin his term by jailing the old El Presidente.
We don't need that. It would be a bad thing to start, and everybody knows it. In fact after Clinton got his turn in the barrel with a Special Prosecutor, there was bipartisan agreement in Congress to let that law expire.
But that does not mean that people can't still find this stuff out. It just means that the Justice Department is not going to lead the charge. I have not receeived any emails from Karl Rove telling me to lay off of this, and I don't expect to.
If it turns out that Bill and Hillary Clinton are crooks, it is not going to "damage the Presidency." They're gone; we just need to make sure they don't come back.
As for Sheehan grabbing the interest, that's just the cultural meme of the Damsel in Distress overpowering anything else. She's the political version of the Runaway Bride. As much as people squawk about how that nonsense eats up hours on the TV, they vote with their remotes for more of it. It is the definitive example of the feminist principle that women have no power in our society.
...to make sure that any inconvenient facts that implicated the Clintons were sanitized out. The enemy of the Committee was always the Bush Administration.
Gorelick had to make sure that her mess was covered up. That's why she was on the Committee. It just so happened that her fellow Republican comisssioners covered up for her.
Nick one thing that didn't come out in my post to my blog or my comment was my respect for your post.
But I do also respectfully disagree with your belief that President Bush does not believe that this scandal will end up soiling the office of the President. The American people may forgive much but an American President, Clinton, whose administration shut down the biggest lead to preventing 9/11, it is perfectly rational to believe that many will lose a great deal of respect for the office. But thats not even the worst of it, not only that but then the very same individuals from the Clinton Administration that shut the investigation down realize the magnitude of their error and manage to get aboard the primary investigative committee investigating the failures and they manage to squelch the evidence of their original failure. Yea we all fell off the turnip truck yesterday.
The part that hurts the most is both Republicans and Democrats had to have collaborated with this nonsense since by the time the commission was formed President Bush knew about Able Danger. So its almost like...well its like both parties understood the amount of credibility the Government stood to lose and acted to attempt to squelch it. Remember President Bush saw the charts regarding Able Danger's findings back on September 22,2001.
You may not have received your email but careful of the mind waves emanating from Karl Roves antennas...hehe On a serious note my critique of the Right Side of the Blogsphere stands, they are either timid or they have backed away because of leaks that this story wasn't viewed favorably. This is a blockbuster and it is worrisome that people like Michelle Malkin, Powerline, Instapundit, Drudge (where the hell is Drudge?), and others aren't all over this story, what happened to Little Green Footballs??? Hugh Hewitt on vacation??? The revered fact checkers seem to be on a Lewinsky vacation...like we all were back in 9/11/2001. Thank god for the Captain.
Pierre Legrand
as all.
True the rules on surveillance were severely circumscribed, though I would contend these actions largely took place under the Ford administration as a result of Watergate.
What loosened the rule was the passage of FISA and the establishment of FISA courts with jurisdiction to grant warrants.
The actions during the Clinton administration were specifically designed to limit the power of prosecutors to seek FISA warrants.
PierreLagrand,
Michelle Malkin has had two posts on Able Danger, and she has linked pretty heavily dealing with it. Not sure how much more you want her to say until something new on it breaks. Or course, I agree that the right getting caught up in the Sheehan story is foolish, as it plays right into the hands of the MSM as far as I'm concerned. As far as the NARAL flap, that rightly deserved attention. And of course, it doesn't help that the Able Danger story broke while both the NARAL thing and the Sheehan story were in full swing. Plus its August, people on vacation and all that.
Fox News had a piece on their website, and they did interview Weldon on this. If they press this and give it more coverage, then the other networks will be forced to follow, as they don't like seeing Fox scoop them. I too wonder about Powerline, Drudge, etc. Powerline has ran a post or two on this though, but stil it doesn't seem to be the "big story." I was wondering the same thing about LGF, not a peep over there about Able Danger or the White memos. Hmmm.
I'm wondering if people are scared to run too far with this until more comes out? Its potentially so explosive that people may be afraid to get it wrong and look like fools later. On the flip side, if this dies a quiet death without adequate investigation on it, then it should be considered a failure not just by the MSM, but by the blogosphere as well.
One bright spot, Rush Limbaugh was all over the Able Danger story this week, and he wasn't pulling any punches on it either. Some people lately have debated how useful it is to listen to talk radio, believing the blogosphere has made it superfluous, but Rush is still a huge media force, and as millions listen to him every day, Able Danger is going to get alot of exposure (at least on the Right).
One thing I've noticed is the vehement reaction Captain Ed's posts have drawn from liberals in his comments section. They are coming out of the wood work on this Able Danger story. They don't want it to come out to the public that the 911 Omission white washed the Gorelick Wall, the White memos, etc., because it would show that it was Clinton-era liberalism in regards to national security that created the barrier to preventing 911, and not Bush "being asleep at the switch." I agree, thank goodness for Captain Ed.
The thing that REALLY bothers me is the fact that few people have paid attention to what the 911 chairmen said last week. They out and out lied, stating they'd never heard of Able Danger at the beginning of the week, and then spent the rest of the week "disassembling" and amending their statements until they finally had to admit that they had heard of it, and then of course by the end of the week they tried to spin it in such a way as to say that Able Danger didn't had no significance. Covering up the cover up.
Nick,
IF (note I said IF) the Clintons purposely ignored intelligence that could have prevented 911 because they had an interest in keeping the Wall up so as to keep their dealings with China, etc. from coming to light, doesn't that make them criminally negligent? Doesn't that mean that their failure to act on credible intelligence to stop a possible attack on US soil amounts to a violation of the Oath of Office that Clinton took as President? Shouldn't investigations into Chinagate be reopened?
I understand your point about Banana republics, but seriously, we're not talking about having him arrested and shot without trial here. We're talking about gross misconduct at best, and criminal negligence at worst. Should history be written in such a way as to allow the liberal meme that Bush was "asleep at the switch" to become the Truth, or is it important to set the record straight and lay the blame where it rightly belongs, on eight years of Clinton foreign policy failure?
What happened to the notion of justice in this country? The FBI is spending time prosecuting cases against elderly KKK members from the 60s (and rightly so IMO) because it matters that the criminals be punished for their crimes, no matter how long they've gotten away with those crimes. Surely if we can prosecute cases from the 60's, we can take an interest in the actions of a negligent and possibly traitorous president who has only been out of office 5 years, can't we? Does Justice end simply because we find it too inconvenient politically to rehash a case that may have cost more than 3000 lives? Is prosecuting KKK members from the 60's politically correct enough that its palatable to our current political sensibilities, but pursuing a possible case against a negligent President is not? Are there too many Republicans involved in this white wash that it means Truth dies on the vine?
I want an objective investigation. If that shows Clinton did nothing negligent, or that he didn't know what was going on in the intelligence community and therefore failed to act from ignorance, then no sweat, let him be exonerated.
But surely the 911 Commission hasn't played square with the American people. This whole thing needs to be undertaken again, and a hew and cry needs to be raised on this until it happens. Otherwise, 911 will become meaningless. At least until it happens again.
was a clip from the previous post, where it was stated that the lack of ability to communicate came from the Clinton admin. The origins of that lunacy came from Jimmy Carter's exec. order (cite here: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12036.htm). The relevant passage is 2-308B, which prohibits any agency other than the FBI from particiapting in any law enforcement in the US.
This provision had been hamstringing Intelligence activities for two decades before the "wall" memo. My point is that there is plenty of blame to go around, and that the Clintonistas were only piling on at that point.
The memo was a particularly stupid interpretation of the law, considering that it runs counter to specific language that allows information sharing to combat terrorism and drug enforcement.
- doesn't that make them criminally negligent?
No. We've been through this enough times with the Clintons to know that no 'smoking gun' will ever be found that ties either of them directly to the decision. It will either have been one of their minions who did it without informing them, or the copy of the memo with the 'BC' initials on it was one of the things that disappeared down Sandy Berger's pants.
- Should history be written in such a way as to allow the liberal meme that Bush was "asleep at the switch" to become the Truth... ?
Does it matter? No voting adult who isn't already an in-the-tank liberal believes that. By the time the liberals turn out a generation that was taught that, Bush will have all the relevance that Calvin Coolidge does today. 40% of Americans can't name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Why should I worry about what an education system that does that teaches about a President who will be long gone by the time those kids grow up?
- What happened to the notion of justice in this country?
It has been replaced by The Rule Of Law™. Literally.
- I want an objective investigation.
By posting here, you have made yourself part of the right side of the blogosphere. I'm tellin' ya, we're going to have to do this ourselves. Our vaunted Investigative Journalists are not going to do squat to hurt the Clintons, and Bush is not going to sic the Criminal Division on them. So forget that. If you want it, you're going to have to help do it.
- But surely the 911 Commission hasn't played square with the American people.
No, they haven't. And I do find that a little disturbing when the whole point of the thing was to find out how we missed the clues. Turns out we didn't miss them; we had them right in our hands. And the left hand didn't tell the right hand because somebody wrote a memo. On one level, this is the perfect illustration of why human bureaucracies fail when they reach a certain size. But the Commissioners are all, on some level, part of the Big Bureaucracy and they all had an interest in not letting the public see that it sometimes fails.
"doesn't that make them criminally negligent?"
No. We've been through this enough times with the Clintons to know that no 'smoking gun' will ever be found that ties either of them directly to the decision. It will either have been one of their minions who did it without informing them, or the copy of the memo with the 'BC' initials on it was one of the things that disappeared down Sandy Berger's pants.
I don't quite get this. How do you know there is no smoking gun? Because the Clintons have gotten away with it so far? Believing ahead of time that there is no evidence any where out there that would point this right back to Bill and Hill is approaching the whole thing with a prejudicial view. We can't start an investigation into something by assuming from the very outset that there will be no evidence for something, just as we can't start one by assuming the evidence is there.
There is no such thing as a perfect crime. Criminals always make mistakes, because they have to cover so many variables. Why we would assume that Bill and Hill are so smart that there's no way to investigate whether they were criminally negligent regarding 911 before we bother to actually investigate is beyond me. Its poor journalism.
Furthermore, lets say that the road could only be traced back to a Clinton crony, like Burger or Gorelick. So what? It was the Clintons who appointed them. That casts a whole new light on Hilly's '08 run for the White House. If the Clintons were so inept that they appointed people who were willing to ignore intel that could have prevented 911, then that can be used against Hillary in her next campaign. There's a reason Burger resigned from Kerry's campaign last year, because what he'd done was a complete embarrassment to the Democrats, and regardless of the tap on the wrist he'll get for the crime he committed, the voters know that Burger was lying through his teeth.
Finally, don't underestimate the power of the Truth when it comes to changing the people's minds about the Clinton Legacy. If enough people can be shown that it was Clinton era policy that allowed 911 to happen, rethinking the Clinton Legacy might well become an American past time.
were not the problem-the problem was Army intelligence not being allowed to pass info on to the FBI. Atta was an excluded person because he was a legal resident alien-and that is a definition that appears in Carter's XO.
FISA warrants were the reason for "The Wall."
Atta was not a legal resident alient. He was in the USA on a visitor's visa and excepted from the Carter EO. As best anyone can tell he was excepted because someone didn't like the idea of informing the FBI.
dude. The first I heard of Able Danger and its' connection to the disreputable actions of Sandy Berger was on this very thread. Maybe I spend too much time commuting to, doing, and recovering from my day job...
...to mention that I expressed this very concern on Redstate a few months ago, albeit prompted by another matter. And my concern was, and is, that all these big-money, big-power people (politics aside) in and around DC would rather sweep damning issues under the rug than upset their applecart of sweet perks and comfy privilege.
Maybe they are afraid that if Clinton, Gorelick, et al are found to be truly responsible (as I'm sure they are), the resulting 3000 (at least) lawsuits would end the buisiness-as-usual, go along to get along, we're on the gray train and you're not party they've been throwing at our expense for the last several years. Remember, growing gubmint is good for lots of people...
Whatever its' genesis, it's a game I am quickly growing tired of financing...
a "gravy" train and one I've long since tired of financing...
dimension to this is that we could declare peace with honor and leave Iraq. That could be good for Republicansd or bad for them, but we could cut our combat losses at 2000 and get out now.
Why? Because we now realize that our national security was not directly threatened by terrorists, but by characterless Presidents, Senators, Reprsentatives, reporters, staff members, and assorted greasy lawyers and insiders.
Yep, if the extent of this thing was thoroughly known, the whole house of cards would collapse and Americans would be looking for citizen leaders again -- an outcome wholly unacceptable to the powers that be.
Of course, 'W' may just be wondering if there is a prison of "minimum" enough security to hold ex-congessmen, ex-senators, & ex-presidents -- including himself.
Washington has become too large, with too much money, and far too many favors to grant for this very thing not to have happened sometime. The juggernaut must be stopped or it will be the end of us all...
He was in the country on a visitor's visa, and had applied for a student visa. He was not exempt under the XO. My bad.
were it not for the Visa Express program, a program that essentially made Saudi travel agents U.S. consular officers, he was ineligible for even a visitor's visa to the US.
she's the very reason this Massive Intelligence Failure occurred
Just wow. That's quote a conspiracy theory you've put together there Nick. That whole thing is less credible than blaming Dr. Rice for the attacks that happened on her watch.
Just wow.
Is the best friend Al Qaeda could ever have.
How many more Americans will die because this antisemitic, lying witch promotes herself as the chief poster woman for the MSM?
Will she next appear in videos with Osama bin Laden?
but I think we need to start ignoring her. There is no deeper grief than the grief a mother feels for the loss of a child. I think she's simply carrying her hurt to an ultimate extreme. It's incredibly unfortunate that she's been dragged onto a world stage that she's completely unprepared for.
Blame the media, blame the radical left for its exploitation of here, but please leave her alone. She's a Gold Star mother. There should be nothing more sacred.
moonbat comments-what she needs is an interview with somebody who isn't afraid to really challenge the loony opinions.
Most of her moonbat comments are from posts on leftie blogs or interviews with the antiwar crowd, they are eating those comments up.
But if they start covering her opinions better, you are going to see Cindy quickly fall by the wayside for some other bit of news.
Just curious, I hadn't heard that.
I remember when the 9/11 commission was going on that people were wailing about Gorelick and this memo.
But before I get to that I want to comment on this but of false imagery...
One has to wonder whether we'd all be speaking German now if television had been around in the 1940's. Maybe not. Can anyone even imagine the media giving voice to a distraught, grieving mother who lost her son at Normandy, demanding that the war be ended? The bunch of them would have been shot
The American people had NO INTEREST in fighting the Germans and it is entirely possible that we would not have declared war on the Germans had they not done so towards us.
Secondly to compare this to World War II is completely absurd. The decision to ENTER this war was a contentious one. A large portion of the country was against this. Virtually NO ONE was against WWII. In WWII most Americans found the war to be a war of survival. Only the most extremist supporters of this war believe that the war in Iraq is a war of survival.
Now back to Gorelick. First let's take a look at the memo.
http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document_1995_gorelick_memo.pdf
Because the counterintelligence investigation will involve techniques authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, against target that, in some instances, had been subject to surveillance under Title III, and because it will involve some of the same sources and targets as the criminal investigation, we believe it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited,but continued, criminal investigation
Now what does Jamie Gorelick have to say about this memo?
First, I did not invent the "wall," which is not a wall but a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) and federal court decisions interpreting it. In a nutshell, that law, as the courts read it, said intelligence investigators could conduct electronic surveillance in the United States against foreign targets under a more lenient standard than is required in ordinary criminal cases, but only if the "primary purpose" of the surveillance were foreign intelligence rather than a criminal prosecution
So the plain reading of this memo, sans tin foil, is that Gorelick was trying to ensure that the Counterintelligence investigation would not taint the criminal investigation that was going by giving the criminal investigation information that the FBI could not legally obtain on it's own.
The intelligence failure that enable 9/11 to happen was a systemic failure and to try and blame ONE person is absurd. This is true whether we are talking about Gorelick, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Clinton, or President Bush.
This isn't a matter of the MSM trying to distract people away from this story. This is an example of partisans trying to create a story. They don't spend enough time looking into the details and then decide to fill in the details with their own desired results.
Does anyone know if the 'second phase' of the 9-11 investigation is going to go forward? Last I read it had stalled, and there was no plan to start it back up again. If so that's too bad; seems there's quite a lot (including the story above) that should still be examined.
. . .that makes her conduct all the more vile. Turning what should be part of shared national grief into a piece of freakshow street theater that Jerry Springer would blush at is unforgivable, IMO.
Dang! I can't remember now if he died of colon cancer or prostate cancer.
The tragedy is that both can be successfully treated if detected early. If you're age 50 and up, do yourself a favor and talk to your doctor about a colonoscopy and a PSA.
The colonoscopy procedure isn't as bad as the "clean-out" prep work.
For guys, the PSA test can detect early stages of prostate problems.
to bang my drum and say that the advent of genetic tests that can detect a predisposition to colon, prostate and many other cancers could save even more lives, unless people are so scared of being dropped from insurance or fired from work that they don't have these tests done in time to make lifestyle changes that could save their lives.
Honesty.
Integrity.
Loyalty.
She has violated all of those.
And my son is volunteering to join the army as we speak.
Casey was a patriot. His mother is white trash.
Casey was a patriot. His mother is white trash
Very nice. Really elevating the discourse here.
not employed in Saudi Arabia, he wasn't married, etc. all made him a risk to overstay his visa.
Than the enabling bs the left is tossing around.
Casey, an adult, vonlunteered and re-enlisted.
Sheehan is lying that he was tricked, did not understand and was duped.
She is selling the pile here.
I am calling it for the pile it is.
She's a grieving mom. A grieving mom's judgement is clouded by her pain.
Again, the problem is that she's a creation of those who promote her. She may in fact moderate some of her anger as she processes the grief. And when and if she does, she'll still have made the ultimate sacrifice (in my opinion) for her country.
My little brother died 18 1/2 years ago, at age 18. Two other neighbors, who had each lost their sons, came to visit my mom. Neither my mom nor the other ladies changed their personalities during their loss.
They were distraught. They were sad in the extreme. They could not imagine how they would manage to live out their lives with the pain they were experiencing. But they did not turn into anti-Semitic lunatics. They did not turn into hate filled attention seekers. They did not turn into media hounds determined to "have their say" with the President or "have their way" with foreign affairs.
This Sheehan person is a hate filled screed in the making. But she was thus prior to her loss. Her loss only magnified her previous personality and her ability to make a spectacle of her life and loss is no witness to the depth of the loss, only to the inadequacy of her own common sense.
I am trying not to crinkle up the tinfoil too loudly as I fold my hat, but Clinton minions were, and still are, excellent document ferrets. Maybe their stash of FBI files still causes some reticence on Capitol Hill.
to know that.
Of course I read at various blogs, and don't depend on the NYTimes and ABC to feed my daily news.
Good call though-not only does this story shoot some holes in the "Bush lied people died" meme, but it also allows the excessively lazy media to cover the "lazy" story and pretend like the 9-11 commission didn't seek to hide some important facts from the American people.