Posted on 05/18/2002 2:28:53 PM PDT by bigdog
XXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SAT MAY 18, 2002 14:31:25 ET XXXXX
DOWD: OUR MAN IN ARIZONA
"He hasn't been featured in any of the flinty-eyed, lantern-jawed photo shoots where the Bush team preened as war heroes. Annie Leibovitz has never laid eyes on him."
NY TIMES op-ed queen Maureen Dowd is set to pass out the medals on Sunday, according to publishing sources, in a column paying tribute to the Phoenix-based FBI agent who warned about Islamic extremists in U.S. flight schools prior to 9/11.
The agent, Kenneth Williams, named by the LOS ANGELES TIMES on Saturday, gets full Dowd affection, just as she slaps around Bush officials for not living up "to their own billing."
"The Bushies were still fixated on their Maginot line of missile defense in the sky when the threat was Qaida freaks with box cutters. They cast themselves as the pros from Dover, the generals of the Gulf War with the right stuff," slaps Dowd.
"Now comes Mullah Omar spouting off that he and Osama will bring 'fire and hell' on America. Even the unshakable Condi seems shaky."
Dowd plants a tough-left: "Dick Cheney suggested that Democrats asking questions were unpatriotic. But that suggestion is anti-American. Maybe there has been too much bipartisanship lately. You can't get the truth that way."
Developing late Saturday...
Why would Drudge want to suck up to this ^%$$@^)*&^(*_( ?
Ahhhhhh...I wouldn't have thought of it that way. Is he big on McCain too?
Maybe they both like the same man.
She's right about one thing though. That agent, who was completely ignored, was onto something. That guy deserves some credit. He saw something, and tried to to do the right thing.
It is a pity that this recognition has to come from her first.
Our Man in Arizona
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON — He hasn't been featured in any of the flinty-eyed, lantern-jawed photo shoots where the Bush team preened as war heroes. Annie Leibovitz has never laid eyes on him.
Even his name has been secret. He's the hidden 9/11 hero. With almost cinematic uncanniness, the G-man from Arizona got into the heads of America's mortal enemies.
Bush officials keep insisting that no one could have predicted 9/11. But the Phoenix F.B.I. agent predicted enough to perhaps pre-empt it, if he hadn't been blocked by superiors too lazy to pursue hot leads and too arrogant to share them.
The F.B.I. man figured out that Osama bin Laden might have dispatched followers to flight schools in Arizona and elsewhere to train them for a coordinated terrorist operation that would infiltrate our airlines.
Headquarters thought it was too much trouble to check out, even though his vivid, detailed memo landed in Washington only days after the terrorism czar Richard Clarke warned F.B.I., aviation and I.N.S. officials to be on the highest alert because "something really spectacular" would happen soon. The six-week superalert was still going on when W. began his four-week vacation.
The F.B.I. chief, Robert Mueller, said the Phoenix memo had been junked by midlevel analysts because it had seemed like "a monumental undertaking without any specificity." The C.I.A. wasn't even told about it until two weeks ago, when it discovered two Al Qaeda names on it.
I guess nothing short of a copy of Mohamed Atta's Travelocity itinerary would have stirred the F.B.I. from its stupor. It couldn't call a few flight schools? I always thought F.B.I. agents were paid to lose sleep over imprecise but alarming details and lucky hunches. Even a month later, when they got Moussaoui, who told flight instructors he didn't need to know how to land, they didn't connect those darned dots.
The F.B.I. has known for years that American flight schools were breeding grounds for Al Qaeda pilot-wannabes. And the idea of planes as weapons was nothing new. In 1994, an American crashed his Cessna 150 at the White House — and Islamic militants were thwarted trying to slam a plane into the Eiffel Tower.
The F.B.I. was warned in 1995 by Philippine police that Ramzi Yousef, who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had schemes to hijack and blow up a dozen U.S. airliners on the same day and to hijack a plane and dive it into the C.I.A.
A 1999 intelligence report for the C.I.A. warned that bin Laden's terrorists might hijack a plane and slam it into the C.I.A., the Pentagon or the White House. The Italians told U.S. authorities last summer at the Genoa summit meeting that Islamic terrorists might try to ram a plane into the summit headquarters.
After an Islamic fundamentalist shot Meir Kahane in 1990, the F.B.I. seized 29 boxes of evidence from the killer, including bomb formulas and speeches by the blind sheik in the '93 bombing about "destroying the edifices of capitalism," with pictures of the Washington Monument, the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center. The F.B.I. did not bother to translate this stuff for three years — until after the '93 bombing.
Even if all President Bush learned at his Crawford briefing on Aug. 6 was that bin Laden was gearing up for hijackings here, why not order tougher airport security and fortified cockpit doors? After all, the 9/11 attacks started as old-fashioned hijackings.
The Bushies were still fixated on their Maginot line of missile defense in the sky when the threat was Al Qaeda freaks with box cutters. They cast themselves as the pros from Dover, the generals of the Gulf war with the right stuff.
They did not live up to their own billing. They were caught flat-footed and struck back, but not well enough to get the guy behind the attack. Now comes Mullah Omar spouting off that he and Osama will bring "fire and hell" on America. Even the unshakable Condi seems shaky.
Maybe the 9/11 indicators were general. But it's the job of government to interpret, develop and pool the info, to game out scenarios, to force the F.B.I. and C.I.A. to share.
Dick Cheney suggested that Democrats asking questions were unpatriotic. But that suggestion is anti-American. Maybe there has been too much bipartisanship lately. You can't get the truth that way.
Not to mention a bitter, angry, frustrated spinster with a raging biological clock who can't find a man.
Thank God for small blessings. At the rate she's going, she'll never be able to spew forth her progeny on an unsuspecting world.
He's trying to appear objective after his years of "Clinton bashing".
Memo to Drudge: It ain't bashing if it's true. And it ain't news if it's a lie.
I think he's using "queen" the same way we refer to "Queen Hillary." Besides, Drudge posts based on what will draw hits to his site and get people to talk about Matt Drudge, nothing more. Judging from this thread, it works.
Do you have a cite for this? I believe you, but I need some proof to wave in front of my liberal "friends" to show that what this guy turned up wouldn't have saved us from anything.
Apparently not. Heads should have rolled after RR. Heads should have rolled after Waco. Heads should have rolled after the first WTC bombing. Heads should have rolled after OKC. And yes, heads should be rolling now. Why not? Because on monday Americans just go back to work. We do not protest and we do not make demands of our leaders. We stand aside hoping our leaders will do the right thing, and they seldom do. Still we do not protest. Come monday, we just go back to work.
To date, none of the above atrocites have led to any expression of outrage by Americans. On paper and here electronically yes, but not a single protest against Arab aggression for the 911 attack has been staged. Not one march on Washington has been held to demand that Arab terrorists here on visas be removed immediately from this country. Not a single march on Washington has been held to demand that Arab terrorists no longer be allowed into this country.
The biggest question is, where is the outrage from Americans for black tuesday? And when ordinary citizens awake from their fbi like stupor?
As I recall, the FBI requested a warrant to look at his computer, but the DOJ turned it down. A civil liberties thing, I believe.
I doubt that the case. If the fbi can send a sharp shooter to the wilds of Idaho to take out a mother holding her infant child and get away with it, they can look at a suspected terrorists' computer without anyone's permission.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.