Laziness in the Face of Mortal Danger

I just cannot figure out why this is a huge deal. It could be I am a bit dense, but let me see if I am getting the point you are making. Because this administration was warned that Bin Laden wanted to attack us and those plans may include hijacking an aircraft, then since the attacks did materialize and were successful, we are to deduce the administration is to blame.

I guess the only way to have made people happy here is that every time there is a credible threat of a terrorist attack that the president, whoever he may be at the time, should jump into a phone booth and emerge as superman to save us. Does this mean I can personally blame Clinton for the attack on the USS Cole? Surely our intelligence under him should have come up with enough foreknowledge to stop that one. Or maybe not. I forgot that was a democratic admin. They get a free pass. Also, what does that have to do with now, right? Ancient history.

I believe mistakes were made with information received from our intelligence agencies. How can you blame a president? If so, I can cite several other examples of a president mishandling intel that led to disaster.

We need to stop pointing fingers at a president (where this blame game is concerned) and hopefully learn from our mistakes. Neither Bush, Clinton, the FBI, the CIA or any other American agency or person is responsible for 9/11. That responsibility is fully Bin Laden's and his organization.

Didn't we just pull our people out of Saudi Arabia because of warnings of attacks? Is Bush to blame for those as well?

Oh this is such bullshit. Of course we point fingers at presidents. Of course we blame the president. Sheesh. Get real, Coastal Rat, and try to remember how much the conservatives blamed Clinton for everything... and still do.

Bush has a lot to answer for and, like the mealy-mouthed jerk he is, he is now hiding behind his inability to read. In this White House, the buck never stops. I cannot believe anyone is still crediting Bush for anything except the ability to breathe.

From what i have read and understood, the US was following the plans made during the Clinton regime as far as anti-terror policy goes until they could get their hands around it and formulate a plan of their own that would fit all the objectives they had considered.

So, we can still blame Clinton.

And where does playing this blame game get us? Nowhere. It does not help at all. Once you start down the path of blaming someone, the other side can usually go a little further down the path to point the finger back at the blamers.

I personally don't think that gets us anywhere at all. Except it does provide interesting debate. I don't personally ascribe to the crazy notion that Clinton should have grabbed Bin Laden when he had the chance, thus possibly aborting 9/11. He made a decision based on intel and his own gut and decided not to take him. In hindsight, I think we all wish he had done it differently. So do I get to blame him for 9/11? Of course not. Will some republicans who don't use their brains properly blame him? Of course. Does not make them right.

Oh Piffka. Do you personally know President Bush? Or if not, do you have some knowledge that would indicate he is a "jerk"? Can you define "jerk" for me? I try to avoid calling anyone a name since it really seems so beneath an intelligent species such as us. My kids used to call people names before they matured. Surely that is a bit silly for someone posting here, is it not?

Actually, listen to interviews with different reporters and authors, I've heard that the Bush admin did everything it could to not do anything that Clinton was doing.

Well, according to their sworn testimony before the 9/11 commission, that the way it was happening.

CoastalRat: There is not much any of us who chat on the Internet can really do except try to lay blame. If you can lay blame on the other side, then that's even better. We can't make policy and even if every member who has ever signed up on A2K were to make a petition, I doubt we could even shift any politician at all.

So, Clinton failed as president to protect us.

The gist of the article says that the 2 admins' policies were similar, but Bush and Co seemed to think differently.

I believe the incoming Bush team said the previous Clinton team was overly fixated on Al Qaida.

Fascinating!

There were two things, at least, that the Bush administration wasn't doing that Clinton's did. One was that during the Clinton administration, the president was known to read his documents.

The second and probably most important was that Clinton held meetings to "shake the tree" in meetings where FBI and CIA and National Security types discussed daily events. That is how, it was said, the plot against LAX was found out and stopped.

It is water under the bridge now and so silly to go back and forth about a president who cannot come back. Partisan politicking is the least useful of all actions anyone in power could take, yet George W. has to do that and so do his henchmen because he wants to be re-elected. Really, I think every president should only serve one term. Once is enough, then they don't need to concentrate on being re-elected but can go ahead and try to think about their job.

You know what really burns me right now? That this Iraqi Plan for war was developed for two years and yet it seems so obviously unthought-out. Did a military guy really write it up? Did anybody READ it and believe it? Was it ever up-dated? Did they ever consider "non-action?"

<goes away, shaking head>

hi piffka- Still no one knows what Bush was doing at the ranch when he recieved the PBD or if he was even sober.

Really Deecups, I think he looks like he needs a drink.