I did.
He said that he reviewed the "plans" the Clinton Administration Team handed over to the Bush Team last night. He said they were nothing more than a few "points" such as "more diplomacy" and "increased pressure"...
One of us mis-heard. I think he was actually slamming the Bush administration in general, and Condi Rice in particular, for saying that they had changed the approach to Al-quaeda, and developed a plan for dealing with it. He absolutely has savaged the Clinton administration, but I think his comments this morning were aimed at the Bush administration plan.
I heard it exactly as you did.
On another note, I wonder if the commission will be briefed before Dick arrives for his ever so important two hours.
Why do I think Kerrey was showing his partisanship today? Because any pre-9/11 plan could only have focused on non-military actions. Look at all the whining over our invasion of Iraq even in the post-9/11 era. Does anyone seriously think either the Clinton or Bush administrations could have invaded Afghanistan prior to 9/11?
I think it's time to be brutally honest with ourselves, as well as to demand it of our public officials. We, the American people, would not have agreed to big-time military options against terrorists in far-flung places prior to 9/11. As the jihadist movement gained strength in the 1970's, '80's and '90's, most of us paid little attention. While our government's response to each fresh outrage grew weaker and more impotent, we didn't demand change. We keep returning the Ted Kennedys, Robert Byrds, Jim Jeffords, and others of that ilk to power in the senate.
We elected Richard Nixon, then allowed an unelected member of the House of Representatives to replace him. We followed up by electing the pathetic Jimmy Carter. We kept the corrupt Leftist Dems in power in the Senate and House right up to 1994. We tried to change course with the election of Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush. But even the great President Reagan made the mistake of turning tail in Lebanon after the Marine barracks were destroyed. Why? Because he knew we, the American people, would support our going to war with the terrorists in the Middle East.
In 1992, we gave up on the Reagan revolution and sent the first 60's radical to the White House in Bill Clinton. We came within a hare's breath of electing Clinton's very peculiar VP, and may well be poised to elect an even worse 60's radical this November in the person of John Kerry.
Here in California, we've known since 2000, when a plot to bomb LAX was foiled, not by any U.S. government action, but by an alert Canadian border guard, that our state is under grave threat from terrorists. Yet we keep electing one of the most Marxist, weak and, frankly, stupid legislatures in the nation. Not content with their nonsense, we also continually send two Leftists empty skirts to the senate in the persons of Feinstein and Boxer. (Boxer is likely to be re-elected this Nov.) We tolerate haters like Maxine Waters, Henry Waxman, etc., representing us in the House (also likely to be re-elected).
Heck, narrowing it down even to those of us who profess to be on the right side of the political spectrum — even here among people who are supposedly the strongest on national defense — we have a vocal minority who seem incapable of tearing themselves away from their need to "send a message" via a vote for a minority party or by not voting at all.
We, the American public, need to sober up (metaphorically speaking) and take our own security seriously — and reflect our seriousness in our votes, in what we'll tolerate from the media, and so on.