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September 10, 2006

I'M WATCHING "THE PATH TO 9/11" NOW: Ed Driscoll offers an interesting quote from a 2001 New Yorker article:

Soon after Freeh received these reports, he went to Berger's West Wing office to tell him that they might finally have the evidence necessary to bring indictments. Freeh told Berger that he was looking into whether the United States could take testimony in Saudi Arabia for a grand jury in the States; it was a novel legal concept, and the Saudis had not yet agreed to it. Almost before Freeh could finish, Berger demanded, "Who else knows about this?" Did the press know? This was the last question that Freeh expected from a national-security adviser. Not many people knew, Freeh replied. The information was very closely held. Berger also questioned some of the statements linking the bombing to the Iranian government.

"That's just hearsay," Berger said.

"No, Sandy," Freeh replied. "It's testimony of a co-conspirator in furtherance of a conspiracy." Berger, Freeh later thought, was not a national-security adviser; he was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press. After more than two years, Freeh had concluded that the Administration did not really want to resolve the Khobar bombing.

When I asked Berger about this, he seemed baffled by Freeh's interpretation.

After the pants incident, its hard for me to respect Berger, and easy for me to see him as overly concerned with how things will play in the press. Read the whole thing and form your own opinions.

UPDATE: Austin Bay is watching it too: "I see why Clinton is afraid of it. The movie serves as a reminder of all of the terrorist attacks and attempted attacks. Clinton went eight years and Bush eight months playing cops and robbers while Al Qaeda was implementing unrestricted warfare."

Yes, the Democrats have shown their usual instinct for the capillary. While worrying about minor bits, they've missed that the real harm is simply the reminder of the terrorist threat, which they've tried to downplay, but which they've magnified in people's minds by making a stink. Going on the offensive like this just reminds people that they've been dowplaying it for over a decade.

If they'd kept their mouths shut, this would be about the terrorists, which would be bad enough. Now it's about the terrorists and the Democrats.

http://instapundit.com/archives/032482.php