Bush on the 9/11 Report

From Kos:

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If you’ve got time to plow through a thorough deconstruction of Dubyanocchio’s efforts to gag investigators, I recommend How the Bush administration sought to obstruct and discredit the 9/11 investigation put together by the Center for American Progress.

Simply stated, had it been up to Bush & Cheney, there would have been no hearings, no report and certainly no bipartisanship.

There’s plenty to be said in favor of national unity when confronted by peril. So I understand the 9/11 Commission’s desire not to discredit the administrations of either Bill Clinton or George Bush for the failures that cost nearly 3000 lives in Pennsylvania, Washington and New York three years ago. Several Commissioners have remarked in television interviews that we should use their investigation not as a means to gain partisan points in a backward-looking blame-game, but rather as a bipartisan jumping-off point for building an intelligence apparatus that improves America’s ability to prevent this kind of attack from happening again.

Sounds good. But there's a problem. Because, as Joe Conason points out in Salon today, while Republican 9/11 Commissioners are smiling at their Democratic colleagues, Republican leaders in Congress are still eagerly blaming Bill Clinton for the terrorist attacks.

You should read the entire report of the Commission, but you don't have to do that to know what a freakin’ lie this attack on Clinton is. All the worse of a lie when spouted by minions and pals of the guy whose administration did worse than zero about terrorism up until September 12, 2001. . .

[. . .]

So forget bipartisanship. What about speedily making the changes the Commission recommends? Can we afford to wait? After all, isn’t that exactly what we so often criticize Bush for having done in his first nine months of office? Indeed, usually level-headed folks at the Center for American Progress are seeking rapid action.

Certainly, our intelligence operations need improving. And the last thing we need is for the 9/11 Commission report to wind up on the shelves alongside the 2001 Hart-Rudman report or the 2000 Report of the National Commission on Terrorism (Bremer) .

On the other hand, this call to do something right this instant gives me the creeps. The 9/11 Commission has, after all, recommended the broadest overhaul of U.S. intelligence in five and a half decades, one that will be with us for many decades to come. Every great change generates unintended consequences. Speedy change offers vast potential for more such consequences. For instance, one key recommendation is centralization. That could be beneficial or terrifying.

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Entire post.

While my first instinct screams, 'do something now', I remember how the Patriot Act was rushed through Congress and now we're still trying to figure out what rights we've lost. I don't know if I like the idea of one guy controlling the entire intelligence gathering apparatus of the United States government. Kos is right, the thought is is terrifying.