Tom DeLay: Commissioners Gone Wild

April 16, 2004 Honorable Thomas H. Kean Chairman National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

As you know, the task of the 9/11 Commission is threefold. Task one is to examine and report on facts pertaining to the United States' intelligence and security infrastructure leading up to the 9/11 attacks. Task two is to provide our government with recommendations that will help prevent similar attacks in the future. And task three is to accomplish tasks one and two in a nonpartisan, disinterested manner.

Unfortunately, the commission's recent public hearings have frequently fallen short of meeting these responsibilities. Some commissioners' tactics during questioning have served to distort witness statements, cut off answers and otherwise blur the distinction between the commission's work and a prime-time cable talk show.

However deliberate and respectful the commission's private meetings may be, its recent public hearings have displayed neither the nonpartisanship nor the seriousness expected by Congress and demanded by the American people.

The camera-driven tone of the hearings undermines the commission's credibility, distracts the American people from the gravity of the War on Terror and could send dangerous messages to unfriendly eyes and ears around the world.

I am also concerned to find commissioners fanning out across media programs to discuss the ongoing investigation. Commissioners are presumably entering this process with open minds, yet many are discussing their views before a complete accounting has been obtained.

Judicial Coup d'Etat

Friday, September 19, 2003
By Bill O'Reilly
This is very important and somewhat repetitive and I'm sorry about that, but again it's very important.

There is a move in the United States to change the country. The ACLU (search) is hooking up with a number of liberal judges to declare things that they don't like as unconstitutional.

Now, a judge can declare anything unconstitutional -- you can interpret the words of the founders in many different ways -- but the will of the people has always been the driving force behind policy in America.

This is changing and here's the best example I can give you. According to a Gallup Poll, 77 percent of Americans do not object to displaying the Ten Commandments in a courtroom.

However, as we know, a federal court has ruled the display unconstitutional. So it is not the will of the people that the judges are concerned about and it's also not prior history, as the Ten Commandments have been displayed in public forums for more than 200 years.

In my upcoming book, Who's Looking Out for You, I provide rock-solid proof that the Founding Fathers wanted spirituality incorporated into public policy -- that is, they wanted a definite morality right and wrong to be considered in policy matters.

Now the ACLU and some judges are hell bent -- pardon the pun -- on changing that and circumventing the will of the people.

Item: the California recall (search). Three liberal judges override the will of 2 million Californians.

Item: the San Francisco homeless initiative. One far-left judge tells citizens their votes about not providing cash to the homeless don't count.

Item: a Massachusetts judge throws out a criminal case against a man caught with two pounds of cocaine because the judge doesn't like the cop who made the arrest -- we'll deal with that story in a few moments.

Item: a liberal federal judge in San Diego says the Boy Scouts (search) are a religious organization and no town can do business with them.

I could give you hundreds of other examples, including judges taking the words "Christmas vacation" off school calendars, even though Christmas is a federal holiday, approved by Congress.

It is obvious, ladies and gentlemen, that we the people are being directly attacked by secularists who want to change this country. They know they can't do it in the voting booth, so they are going to do it using the courts.

This is no less than a potential coup d'etat and you should know about it. Next to the war on terror, this is the most important story the U.S. has seen in decades.

"Finally, Mr. Chairman, I know I speak for many in the Congress when I express my growing concern about the recent revelations regarding Commissioner Gorelick.

I will withhold judgment until all the facts are in, but if it is the case, as has been reported, that Commissioner Gorelick indeed enhanced and helped formalize the very policies that may have created barriers to preventing the 9/11 attacks, a profound conflict of interest would appear to exist. Given the importance of impartial analysis to the commission's work, these allegations, if true, would seem to preclude Commissioner Gorelick's involvement in preparing a credible final report."

I don't know seems Mr. DeLay came right to the point, about what Gorelick appears to have done and having this in public tells what is required to have a credible final report.

The final paragraph of Tom Delay's letter should not be omitted for it too is important for (graciously) restating commission goals since Chairman Kean seems to have forgotten them. IMHO, any chairman who is blind to partisan motives and cannot see a conflict on interest while it stares him in his face has no business serving as chairman of a investigative panel that wants its recommendations to be taken seriously:

"Mr. Chairman, we're all in this together. A full factual accounting is what Congress expects and the American people demand. The commission's work is too important to be undermined by partisanship, self-promotion, or conflicts of interest. I know you share my commitment to the commission's credibility, which we can both agree will best be served going forward by a process devoid of these unfortunate distractions. Thank you for your service and your consideration of these concerns."

"The final paragraph of Tom Delay's letter should not be omitted for it too is important for (graciously) restating commission goals since Chairman Kean seems to have forgotten them. IMHO, any chairman who is blind to partisan motives and cannot see a conflict on interest while it stares him in his face has no business serving as chairman of a investigative panel that wants its recommendations to be taken seriously:"

I agree with the tone and words from Tom Delay. Shows that he is not seeking to make his concerns political, rather stating exactly what the "mission" this commission was established for.

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