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'Tis the season when annual performance awards are handed out. If there is one for chutzpah, could there possibly be a more worthy candidate than the 9/11 commission? It appears that this panel, an astronomically overrated study in self-absorption, is finally going away. You can never be too sure, of course. Clinging to the last fading glimmers of limelight, the august commissioners have already once overcome statutory death. Resurrecting themselves as an ombudsman through the miracle of private financing, they've been keen to morph from our high-profile raconteurs to our high-profile conscience. What they are, though, is a high-profile debacle.

It's truly a shame that the panelists on the 9-11 commission were such self-important windbags -- their 41 recommendations, they never fail to remind, were (all bow) "unanimous and bipartisan" -- that they blew their chance to make this country safer. Don't' get me wrong. Washington has been unconscionably slow in doing the practical things needed -- such as providing a radio spectrum for emergency first-responders -- to make America more secure. The panel also was right to criticize the Senate for larding a homeland security spending bill with pork. That said, the panel's hodgepodge recommendations -- the radio spectrum...

9/11 Commission Blew Their Chance By Debra Saunders It's truly a shame that the panelists on the 9-11 commission were such self-important windbags -- their 41 recommendations, they never fail to remind, were (all bow) "unanimous and bipartisan" -- that they blew their chance to make this country safer. Don't' get me wrong. Washington has been unconscionably slow in doing the practical things needed -- such as providing a radio spectrum for emergency first-responders -- to make America more secure. The panel also was right to criticize the Senate for larding a homeland security spending bill with pork. That said,...

December 08, 2005, 8:30 a.m. It’s Time To Investigate Able Danger and the 9/11 Commission 'Tis the season when annual performance awards are handed out. If there is one for chutzpah, could there possibly be a more worthy candidate than the 9/11 commission?

IT'S TRULY A SHAME that the panelists on the Sept. 11 commission were such self-important windbags -- their 41 recommendations, they never fail to remind, were (all bow) "unanimous and bipartisan" -- that they blew their chance to make this country safer. Don't' get me wrong. Washington has been unconscionably slow in doing the practical things needed -- such as providing a radio spectrum for emergency first responders -- to make America more secure. The panel also was right to criticize the Senate for larding a homeland-security spending bill with pork. That said, the panel's hodgepodge recommendations -- the radio...

Since President Bush recently undertook the Herculean task of explaining to the American people after months of senseless silence that (1) he did NOT deliberately deceive them, (2) liberating Iraq was a good thing, (3) NOT liberating Iraq was too dangerous a risk to take after September 11, 2001, (4)the world's intelligence services all thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, (5) Saddam had refused to comply with seventeen United Nations resolutions and prove that he had destroyed his weapons of mass destructions and not acquired others, and (6) suppressing the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq is not only...

It might be easier to take seriously the latest report of the 9/11 commission if it weren't filled with politically correct nostrums that will do little to protect us from terrorism. The bipartisan commission, which ended its official status as a government organization in July 2004 after the release of its "final" report, reconstituted itself as a private, nonprofit group. The panel's chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, says this is the group's last act -- but who knows. The members seem to relish their status as gadflies and love the limelight. But their criticisms and recommendations have not...

The three broadcast networks all did segments this evening on the former 9/11 commission’s report card released today. Though all three focused on the negatives, only the "CBS Evening News” ignored the good grades given by the commission, while also failing to mention that a key problem highlighted in this report is already being addressed by legislation pending in Congress (video link to follow). Bob Orr quickly gave a rundown of the “F’s” and the “D’s” given by former commission members for the government achieving a set of priorities they deemed necessary to avert another terrorist attack. However, as can...

NOT PREPARED FOR TERRORISM The still-useless 9/11 Commission has weighed in on the progress we as a country have made since Islamic terrorists murdered 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001. [related: 9/11 Public Discourse Project] Their verdict? Tom Keane, the former chairman of that committee, appeared on Meet The Press yesterday and said that "A lot of the things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the president or by the Congress. What we're concerned about now is that these recommendations -- four years, more than four years after 9/11, are...

Dec. 4, 2005 — The 9/11 Public Discourse Project will release a "report card" Monday on how well the government has implemented the 41 recommendations made by the federal 9/11 commission in July 2004 — and it's not going to be a good one, says former 9/11 commissioner Jaime Gorelick. "No parent would be pleased with this report card," she said. "I think that we're less safe than we were 18 months ago," she added. "We have a tremendous agenda and we have just not been about doing what we need to make us safe."

(AP) The U.S. is at great risk for more terrorist attacks because Congress and the White House have failed to enact several strong security measures, members of the former Sept. 11 commission said Sunday. "It's not a priority for the government right now," said the former chairman, Thomas Kean, ahead of the group's release of a report Monday assessing how well its recommendations have been followed. "More than four years after 9/11 ... people are not paying attention," the former Republican governor of New Jersey said. "God help us if we have another attack." Added Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic...

p>The Talk Shows Sunday, December 4th, 2005 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Stephen Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Douglas Owsley, division head for physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Thomas Kean, chairman, and Lee Hamilton, vice chairman, of the Sept. 11 investigative commission. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; Hadley; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Hadley; Sens. Joseph Biden,...

WASHINGTON - The government is still failing to enact many swift and strong security changes to prevent terror attacks, the former Sept. 11 Commission has concluded. More than four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government has not done enough to stop nuclear proliferation, give emergency first responders adequate communications systems and ensure that homeland security grants are going to the most high-risk communities, former commissioners said Friday. "We're taking small steps when we need a giant leap," said former Democratic commissioner Timothy Roemer, who is now president of the Center for National Policy at George Mason University...

A petition has been posted here to demonstrate support for a congressional investigation into Able Danger. If you support seeing an investigation please sign the petition. And then you can spread the word here: http://www.petitiononline.com/cgi-bin/mailpage.cgi?weldon/petition.html

What did U.S. military know before 9/11? James Rosen, Star Tribune Washington Bureau November 27, 2005 WASHINGTON - A top-secret military program set up six years ago to probe the Al-Qaida terrorist network is provoking fierce new debate about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Military intelligence officers and contractors who ran the clandestine mission, named Able Danger, say that more than a year before the attacks, the operation identified four of the plot's 19 hijackers and produced a chart that fingered ringleader Mohamed Atta. Those claims contradict findings of the 9/11 commission set up by Congress. In its final report...

WASHINGTON - A top-secret military program set up six years ago to probe the Al-Qaida terrorist network is provoking fierce new debate about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh did not learn of Able Danger until the summer of 2005.  Commenting on the Wall Street Journal op-ed that he published Wednesday November 17, Louis Freeh told me tonight that he and his commanders had no knowledge of the facts of the Special Operations Command's data-mining program, code-named Able Danger, before the remarks by Shaffer and Phillpot in the media and eventually before Senators Specter's Judiciary Committee.More, Louis Freeh, now a private attorney for MBNA, said that since the Able Danger revelation no one at the 9-11 Commission has called him to update the record...

FINALLY. For much of the past week, the White House has been engaged in an aggressive effort to defend the case for war in Iraq. Thus far, it has mainly pointed out the obvious: In the months and years before the invasion, many of those who now accuse the White House of misleading the country to war themselves were making precisely the same claims about the threat from Iraq as the Bush administration.President George W. Bush accused his critics of "rewriting history." Vice President Dick Cheney called the attacks a low point of his three decades in public life. Defense...

Roger Hedgecock was the substitute host on Rush's show yesterday. Close to the end of the second hour Roger had a few words to say about Able Danger. The audio file is up at QT Monster's Place.

The former head of the FBI writes a recap of the Able Danger story that serves as a good entrée for those who may have missed all or part of the issue. Louis Freeh, who served as head of the agency for most of the Clinton administration, wants better explanations made public from the 9/11 Commission -- a group that he correctly describes as bureaucrats somewhat besotted by their fanciful treatment by the media: It was interesting to hear from the 9/11 Commission again on Tuesday. This self-perpetuating and privately funded group of lobbyists and lawyers has recently opined on...