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Whether or not Democrats and establishment networks admit it, the demand of the 9/11 Panel to have the 8/6/01 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) released to the public has backfired in their face Big Time. While it doesn't look intentional, there are strong elements of a Rope-a-Dope strategy at work because highly credible cabinet officers -- Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice were given a platform to make their cases to the public -- with Condi on all networks. It's a talented group Bush has assembled to do the country's business.

CNN's reacted initially as most Americans will, that Dr. Rice's testimony was sported by the release. As Condi said, the PDB was primarily historical, reiterated threats made by al Qaeda now four years old, had been specially requested by an engaged President Bush, and contained no specific actionable information, such as who, what, where, when and how, despite Schneider's claims on CNN that only the date was missing. His was an idiotic remark.

The PDB reference to hijacking of planes was for the purpose of holding passengers hostage while seeking release of the blind sheik implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, not for destroying a building and killing as many Americans as possible. But even if all details were present except for the date (and target), if you intercepted chatter that "something very, very big was going to happen," what would you shutdown? All airline and rail (remember Madrid's 3/11) facilities? All bridges and tunnels in cities over a million? All post offices? All government buildings? All nuclear facilities? All national monuments, like the Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore?

And then the question becomes, For how long? For two days, two weeks, two months, two years, or until the attack comes? Would Americans want to do without travel, without working and without electricity for more than 24 hours? Clearly, Schneider made an ill-considered, nay, stupid and highly partisan call which exposes his weakness: his inability to do intelligent analysis with even a hint of objectivity. So much for CNN, the "Most Trusted" ... to be Most Unreliable! They should sack Schneider to try to salvage whatever might remain of their reputation from the Gulf War of 1991, except MSNBC which makes no such claims and exhibits still lower standards would scoop him up.

In summary, this is a big win for Bush. He did the unexpected and took the unprecedented step to declassify the PDB, which popped the Dems' balloon, instead of letting the issue fester. The hearings reinforced the need to renew the Patriot Act and, if the Panel ever gets to it, shows how shortsighted was the Gore-Reno-Messner push in 1996 to convert immigrants into voters for Clinton's reelection before they passed federal background checks. Furthermore, it points up the simple fact that a pistol in the cockpits of four planes, that is, four pistols as a last line of defense, would have saved 3,000 lives. Clinton never acted to arm or harden cockpits, to get the FBI and CIA to share information, or for that matter to accept the Sudanese's gift of bin Laden.

Unfortunately, the Panel's conduct has been a loss for Americans because, in the future, only information that can be released publicly will ever make it into PDBs. Briefings will become verbal or be transmitted to policy makers by other means. Furthermore, presidential executive privilege which the Clinton administration invoked about 27 times, and lost 26 times in the courts, has been further eroded. Meanwhile, the 9/11 Panel and the unscrupulous families pushing the Democrats' agenda have been exposed as having a transparently partisan goals that work against the interests of improving our national intelligence.

A key recommendation of the Panel should be to keep intelligence briefings out of the public domain to ensure the assessments remain honest and as accurate as possible. However, by its actions and tolerance of partisan cheerleading, the Panel has undercut their own credibility and usefulness. The nation would have been better off if Bush and his cabinet officers had continued to work behind the scenes to improve security, though the public is now better informed. The question is, Will the public remember the lessons learned from the conduct of such panels?

Good post... Very good summary, and I fully agree with you on the issue of Executive Privilege. I don't know how they are going to repair that one.

Good analysis. These panels or commissions should be restricted:

1) all members should not be allowed to run around and give talk show interviews or press conferences until after the reports are given;

2) questions should be presented as such, should the members want to offer personal opinions on any subject (like Kerrey going off on his Iraq rant), the chair should rebuke them.

Great summary.The answer to you ending question is no, because most people get their info from Leno, Letterman, Oprah and Katie.

I hope that enough people will see the truth and get to the polls in November.