I'm sorry. Oral sex in the Oval Office? Perjury in a federal court proceeding? No problem. One trembling lower lip, an oh-so-sincere apology, and all is forgiven. Almost ten years as the White House anti-terrorist chieftain with 9/11 as your legacy? No problem. Even without the lower lip action, one profound apology on behalf of a White House you didn't run and all is forgiven. In Wednesday night's press conference, by my count, President Bush was asked four times to apologize for 9/11, for Iraq, and for merely being there.

So sorry. The problem is that the White House pressies -- who used to be distinguishable from the Kerry campaign staff -- are trying desperately to be straight men for a Kerry campaign sound bite. They failed this time around because the president isn't taking -- and shouldn't take -- the rap for 9/11. But the Brenda Lee Press Corps will keep trying.

Please accept my apology. The shabbiness of it all (especially the performance of John Roberts of CBS, who should pay more attention to his badly-fitted whistling dentures and less to his WASP-fro hairdo) made the president uneasy. He had every right to be, because he knows it's a setup. They wouldn't give him the pass they gave his predecessor again and again. If he confessed error on anything remotely connected to 9/11 or Iraq, they'd be tut-tutting forever, saying that America should accept the apology of this nice but fatally-flawed man. They'd be so terribly sorry to question his fitness for the presidency, and point out that John Kerry didn't make those mistakes.

The reaction to this nonsense is lost in the maelstrom of news from the 9/11 Commission and about the fighting in Iraq. The president has only two things in his mind: winning the war, and winning the election. Unless he does the latter, we won't do the former. He -- and we -- can only expect the partisanship of the press to grow worse, hard as that is to imagine. The partisanship of the 9/11 Commission is no better.

IF THERE ARE APOLOGIES TO BE made, they should be emanating from one member of the increasingly partisan and decreasingly credible 9/11 Commission. No, it's not Richard Ben-Venomous, who at least has the good grace to be openly and sneeringly partisan. The bigger problem is former Clintonoid Deputy Attorney General and -- before that -- Defense Department General Counsel Jamie Gorelick. The Commission lost a lot of credibility on Tuesday when the Bush cabinet member the left most loves to hate, Attorney General John Ashcroft, went on the attack and hit Gorelick right between the eyes.

This column has for years -- and long before 9/11 -- bemoaned the utter fecklessness of the over-lawyered Clinton administration's approach to everything having to do with national security. I'm sure, Dear Reader, you remember the incident when Sandy Berger -- Clinton's national security advisor -- shunned the Sudanese offer of bin Laden on a silver platter because we didn't have enough evidence to indict UBL. And Loose Canons has often complained that the Clintons' approach went farther than the law required in the interest of political correctness. After 9/11, it's been obvious that the intel community was emasculated by laws dating back to the 1970s that made cooperation between the FBI, CIA, NSA and DIA impossible. And the Clintons made it worse.

Ms. Gorelick, as Deputy AG, wrote a memo in 1995 that added several layers of bricks to the top of the wall separating the FBI's criminal investigators and intelligence gatherers. It says, in part, "…we believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which do beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation." Appearances mattered more than allowing the investigators to put the pieces together before 9/11.

THE HEADLINES FROM Tuesday's hearing brought Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner to call for Gorelick to resign, as the Commission's rules require. Sensenbrenner was right, but he may not have been aware of the other big reason Gorelick has to be removed from the Commission. There's another big problem that Ms. Gorelick may be responsible for, and which should result in her answering questions, not asking them.

One of the appendices to Rowan Scarborough's book, Rumsfeld's War, is a previously classified study of why Clinton never used special ops troops to attack bin Laden. That study says that when the Clintons considered employing special operations forces against bin Laden, questions arose whether the Defense Department had the legal authority to engage in such covert operations. Part of it says, "Pentagon lawyers in the 1990s argued that DoD did not have the legal authority.…Only the CIA…had the license to conduct covert action..."

But, as the study found, the Pentagon lawyers' objection is wrong, and specific authority exists for the president to assign covert missions to the armed services. And who was the chief lawyer in the Pentagon in 1993 and 1994? None other than our gal Jamie. She left DoD for the Justice Department before bin Laden became a household word. But DoD top lawyers would have consulted with Gorelick on an issue that would be -- as that one was -- briefed to the Secretary of Defense, and probably to the president as well. Did Gorelick participate in the decision to nix spec ops? What advice did the DoD ask for and receive from her and the Justice Department on that subject? The Commission needs to find out. Under oath.

The 9/11 Commission can go along and play whatever games it may choose. But the serious people on it cannot hope for any credible result if Gorelick remains a member. She should be forced to resign, and called to testify under oath about both the 1995 Memo and the bad legal judgment that blocked the use of special ops against bin Laden. If the Commissioners are serious about finding what went wrong before 9/11, they should look to their left. Miz Gorelick deserves a shot at her own Brenda Lee moment, and damned little else.

The Utterly Absolutely Disgraced 911 Commission [by their own choice]

BREAKING:
GOTTA SEE THIS - Who's Who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission

"Do you really think you are gonna get to ask me why I dared refuse repeat DOJ requests for investigations of dangerous illegal aliens.
Do you really think you are gonna get to ask me why I arranged to stovepipe intelligence to make intraagency effective communication useless.
Do you really think you are gonna get to ask me why illegal aliens who were felons became voters for our Democratic party.
Do you really think you are gonna get to ask me why I OK'd the use of stolen FBI files on DNC computers.
Not a chance. Following LBJ, your gonads are in my fist and your FBI files are in my computer.
Now go away. "

"Some wonder whether [Clinton] was distracted by the legal and
political quagmire of the Monica Lewinsky case.
And even former Clinton aides now regret that the
battle with bin Laden and his Al-Qaida organization was never fully joined.
'Clearly, not enough was done,' said Jamie Gorelick,
a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.
'We should have caught this. Why this happened, I don't know.
Responsibilities were given out. Resources were given. Authorities existed.
We should have prevented this.'

BREAKING: Gorelick (put on the Committee by Daschle)
not only created the background for the 911 Atrocities but now is covering it up
for the terrorists. Gorelick is a litigation partner of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.
which represents Prince Mohammed al-Faisal al-Saud, the House of Saud,
against a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 600 Sept. 11 families.

BREAKING: TWA800

On Aug. 22, 1996, just before the Democratic National Convention,
Ms. Gorelick oversaw a critical Justice Department meeting with the FBI.
mmediately after this meeting, as it happened,
all serious inquiry into the fate of TWA 800 came to an end.

Jamie S Gorelick
Vice Chair
Fannie Mae
$2,000 John Kerry
XXXX Williams Ln
Chevy Chase, MD 20815

Jamie Gorelick
Partner
Wilmer Cutler and Pickering
$2,000 Dick Gephardt
XXXXWilliams Ln
Chevy Chase, MD 20815

Jamie Gorelick
Attorney
Wilmer Cutler & Pickering
$1,000 Wesley Clark
XXXX Williams Ln
Chevy Chase, MD 20815

YOU COULD FREEP the Commission and DEMAND THAT GORELICK BE REMOVED!:
Phone Commission at 202-331-4060
Email Commission at info@9-11commission.gov
Put Thomas Kean in the subject line.

WARNING LABEL : DON'T EXPECT ANY HELP.

Commissioner Kean: "Ms Gorelick is one of the finest members
of the commission and one of the most bipartisan members.
People ought to stay out of our business"

THE REAL DEAL: "According to a 1998 Senate testimony of former CIA director James
Woolsey, powerful financier Khalid bin Mahfouz’ younger sister is
married to Osama bin Laden,. (US Senate, Senate Judiciary
Committee, Federal News Service, 3 Sept. 1998, See also Wayne
Madsen, Questionable Ties, In These Times,12 Nov. 2001 )
Bin Mahfouz is suspected to have funneled millions of dollars to the Al
Qaeda network.(See Tom Flocco, Scoop.co.nz 28 Aug. 2002)
Now, "by sheer coincidence", former New Jersey governor Thomas
Kean, the man chosen by President Bush to lead the 9/11 commission
also has business ties with bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi.
Thomas Kean is a director (and shareholder) of Amerada Hess
Corporation , which is involved in the Hess-Delta joint venture with
Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia (owned by the bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi
clans)...
Now you would think that being a business partner of the brother in
law and alleged financier of "Enemy No. 1" would also be considered a
bona fide "conflict of interest", particularly when your mandate --as
part of the 9/11 Commission's work-- is to investigate "Enemy No. 1".
"(Michel Chossudovsky, New Chairman of 9/11 Commission had
business ties with Osama's Brother in Law , Centre for Research on
Globalization, December 2002 )
Who's Who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission

info@9-11commission.gov

DONT FORGET - PUT THOMAS KEAN IN THE SUBJECT LINE

FREEP and DEMAND THAT GORELICK BE REMOVED!:
Call the President. Leave a message at the White House.

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
E-Mail President George W. Bush: president@whitehouse.gov
Vice President Richard Cheney: vice.president@whitehouse.gov FREEP and DEMAND THAT GORELICK BE REMOVED!:

Congressman Tom DeLay
Majority Leader Office
H-107 The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
p. (202)225-4000
f. (202)225-5117

Congressional Office
242 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
p. (202)225-5951
f. (202)225-5241

FLASHBACKS:

"Mr. Clarke, Mr. Clarke, please this is urgent.
We can take out Osama, now. Please answer!!! We have him in our sight."

Clarke: "Nope. Forgetaboutit. No big deal. They told Gorelick and I
that they promise that they will only attack our computers."

PARTIAL LIST OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES IGNORED BY GORELICK, CLARKE and CLINTON

1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered

THEN:

NOW

Islamic 911 Attack Calendar which was distriibuted worldwide the year before
the terrorists murdered 3000 Americans per hour in the 911 Atrocities.

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW BEFORE THE NEXT ATTACK
How many were in the Offices and homes of clients of Gorelick and/or Kean and their associates?

If Gorelick, Clarke and Clinton had been completely HONEST
to the American public about the Islamic-crashed airplanes, like TWA800, in the 90's
Americans WOULD have been on alert on 911
and would have had the opportunity to prevent the 911 Atrocities.

ONLY POSSIBLE CONCLUSION GIVEN THE CONTINUING COVERUP:

"Gorelick and her gang are trying to use 'plausible deniability'.
Book her .... and the rest of them under RICOH, Dano."

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The Utterly Absolutely Disgraced 911 Commission [by their own choice]

If Gorelick, Clarke and Clinton had been completely HONEST to the American public about the Islamic-crashed airplanes, like TWA800, in the 90's Americans WOULD have been on alert on 911 and would have had the opportunity to prevent the 911 Atrocities.

If Gorelick, Clarke and Clinton had been completely HONEST
to the American public about the Islamic-crashed airplanes, like TWA800, in the 90's
Americans WOULD have been on alert on 911
and would have had the opportunity to prevent the 911 Atrocities.