Phantom Blooper
03-25-04, 06:02 AM
What is purpose of panel on 9-11?
March 25,2004
Forget for the moment the specifics as members of two administrations try to deal with critical assessments from a commission investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and focus instead on two questions.
First, why exactly is this commission doing what it is doing? Some might say its purpose is to help guard against future terrorist attacks, but it is hard to see how the preliminary report and public hearing Tuesday further that goal even an inch.
The discussion was about anti-terrorist activities prior to that deadly day 2 ??ars ago, and we all know that governmental policies changed dramatically after that. The fact is that nothing the commission has revealed or asserted informs us more than an iota about the wisdom of current policies.
The second question: Why should anyone grant any particular credence to this commission's conclusions? While its members have had access to materials not yet public, so have some former and present government officials disagreeing with what the commission says. And any claim of political neutrality is hardly proved by the commission's willingness to fault the Clinton administration as much or more than George W. Bush's administration. Bill Clinton, after all, is not running for reelection this year. Bush is.
It is true, of course, that the congressionally established commission includes members of both parties, but officials of both a Democratic and Republican administration concurred in their unhappy responses to some criticisms.
And while you might say that members of such a commission have less at stake personally than officials whose reputations are on the line, commissions of this type are not necessarily going to be impartial about wanting to justify their own existence. The members are not necessarily going to want to look like namby-pamby sorts who can't say the tough things that need saying. What is not clear is whether some of these tough things are all that defensible. The commission's observations seem to benefit enormously from that which makes geniuses of us all: hindsight.
Perhaps a third question should be raised. Might this commission do actual harm? Truth does serve a democracy. History has practical uses. But it is not clear that truth and history are being served by this commission better than by other modes of research, and meanwhile there are problems. The commission sought a public interview with President Bush and wants to interrogate Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser. We're in the middle of a war on terrorism, and here is this commission distracting key players, almost as if a sports writer was out on the field trying to get quotes from a quarterback while he was throwing his pass.
The greatness of this country resides in no small part from a political system that can hold the highest office in the land accountable, but it does not follow that all exercises in accountability-seeking are wise.
March 25,2004
Forget for the moment the specifics as members of two administrations try to deal with critical assessments from a commission investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and focus instead on two questions.
First, why exactly is this commission doing what it is doing? Some might say its purpose is to help guard against future terrorist attacks, but it is hard to see how the preliminary report and public hearing Tuesday further that goal even an inch.
The discussion was about anti-terrorist activities prior to that deadly day 2 ??ars ago, and we all know that governmental policies changed dramatically after that. The fact is that nothing the commission has revealed or asserted informs us more than an iota about the wisdom of current policies.
The second question: Why should anyone grant any particular credence to this commission's conclusions? While its members have had access to materials not yet public, so have some former and present government officials disagreeing with what the commission says. And any claim of political neutrality is hardly proved by the commission's willingness to fault the Clinton administration as much or more than George W. Bush's administration. Bill Clinton, after all, is not running for reelection this year. Bush is.
It is true, of course, that the congressionally established commission includes members of both parties, but officials of both a Democratic and Republican administration concurred in their unhappy responses to some criticisms.
And while you might say that members of such a commission have less at stake personally than officials whose reputations are on the line, commissions of this type are not necessarily going to be impartial about wanting to justify their own existence. The members are not necessarily going to want to look like namby-pamby sorts who can't say the tough things that need saying. What is not clear is whether some of these tough things are all that defensible. The commission's observations seem to benefit enormously from that which makes geniuses of us all: hindsight.
Perhaps a third question should be raised. Might this commission do actual harm? Truth does serve a democracy. History has practical uses. But it is not clear that truth and history are being served by this commission better than by other modes of research, and meanwhile there are problems. The commission sought a public interview with President Bush and wants to interrogate Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser. We're in the middle of a war on terrorism, and here is this commission distracting key players, almost as if a sports writer was out on the field trying to get quotes from a quarterback while he was throwing his pass.
The greatness of this country resides in no small part from a political system that can hold the highest office in the land accountable, but it does not follow that all exercises in accountability-seeking are wise.