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Ben-Veniste's rudeness was clear for all to see, but to understand just how dishonest was his line of questioning, look at this article from the May 27, 2002, issue of Human Events, a conservative Washington weekly: Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HUMAN EVENTS May 21 that his committee had received all the same terrorism intelligence prior to September 11 as the Bush administration. "Yes, we had seen all the information," said Graham. "But we didn't see it on a single piece of paper, the way the President did." Graham added that threats of hijacking...

The National Commission on Terrorist Acts Upon the United States ostensibly has been exploring how the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could have happened and how they could have been prevented. In light of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony Thursday, I, like so many others, have figured out an easy answer: Get the panel to construct a time machine so that all those geniuses who now believe that Sept. 11 easily could have been averted can wave a magic wand and reinvent the past. That's sort of what is going on anyway. Some commissioners seem to have forgotten what...

<p>In 1997, three men in a Brooklyn shack— two from Jordan who identified themselves as Palestinian and one from Egypt— were days away from blowing up New York's "A" subway train as an audition for membership into Hamas.</p> <p>But their new roommate, who in his few days in the country found Americans to be "nice" and so became confused as to why his roommates wanted to blow them up, flagged down a police car on a Brooklyn street an hour before midnight on July 29. Mohammed Chindluri (search) couldn't speak a word of English, so he played charades with the officer while repeating "Bomba! Bomba!" Rather than ignore the wildman, the officer chose to follow up. Police stormed the Park Slope shack that Chindluri led them to at dawn, shooting the suspects as they reached for the detonator.</p>

<p>April 10, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - Condoleezza Rice's testimony to the 9/11 commission gave a boost to President Bush and helped convince Americans that his administration did all that could be expected to prevent the terrorist attacks, a new CNN poll shows. The poll - taken Thursday after blanket TV coverage of Rice's dramatic appearance - found that 48 percent of Americans now think Bush did all that could be expected while 40 percent disagree. That's a big shift from 10 days ago when 54 percent said Bush didn't do everything possible - that was at the peak of the furor over Richard Clarke's claim that the president was asleep at the switch.</p>

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice’s strong performance in her appearance before the September 11 Commission should put to rest any notion that the Bush administration was complacent or inattentive to the terrorist threat facing the United States before September 11. Rice capably defended the Bush White House against the storm of controversy created by former National Security Council staffer Richard Clarke’s book Against All Enemies, as well as against Mr. Clarke’s testimony before the Commission. Dr. Rice was convincing, composed, and eloquent in her opening statement and in her answers to the Commission’s pointed — and sometimes partisan — questioning....

The top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush on Aug. 6 carried the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," and was primarily focused on recounting al Qaeda's past efforts to attack and infiltrate the United States, senior administration officials said. The document, known as the President's Daily Briefing, underscored that Osama bin Laden and his followers hoped to "bring the fight to America," in part as retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998, according to knowledgeable sources. Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the...

Laxity was the central cause of America's sloppy security prior to 9/11. Yet lax liberals, the ones who typically view heightened security as an attack on civil liberties, are the loudest critics of Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration. Had the Bush administration adopted ramped-up, hardheaded security policies prior to 9/11, the Richard Ben-Venistes would have been the first to cry foul. Let's say George Bush during the 233 days before 9/11 had armed pilots, instructed airline officials to profile Muslim males, and called for more domestic intelligence on radical Muslims wandering through the U.S. Would the Democrats have applauded...

Now that Condi Rice has averted the initial lynching, it might be time to look back at some of the evidence. The 9-11 commission was out in full force Thursday as National Security Adviser Condi Rice took the stand to get grilled in public, but stuck to her guns. What remains to be seen is how attacks in Iraq will play in Peoria, particularly when the politics of nation destruction is the history repeat this time around. Democrats launched the "Ted Offensive," letting Sen. Kennedy out of the beach house to cross yet another bridge back towards the 20th Century...

Laxity was the central cause of America's sloppy security prior to 9/11. Yet lax liberals, the ones who typically view heightened security as an attack on civil liberties, are the loudest critics of Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration. Had the Bush administration adopted ramped-up, hardheaded security policies prior to 9/11, the Richard Ben-Venistes would have been the first to cry foul. Let's say George Bush during the 233 days before 9/11 had armed pilots, instructed airline officials to profile Muslim males, and called for more domestic intelligence on radical Muslims wandering through the U.S. Would the Democrats have applauded...

Eager to tout improved relations with Libya for abandoning its weapons programs, the White House omitted the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing from the list of terrorist attacks cited today by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, angering victims' families. After the backlash, the White House scrambled to minimise the damage, issuing a letter of apology by Rice to the Lockerbie families, some of whom said they had been sickened by the administration's stance. "We did not include attacks that were the work of a government, such as the Libyan government's bombing of Pan Am 103. This was a mistake, for which...

Kerrey/Rice Clash Ex-Nebraskan not satisfied with testimony Former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey said he was not satisfied Thursday by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's responses to questions posed by the commission investigating the September 11 attacks. "I simply don't like a conclusion that says we didn't make any mistakes," Kerrey said after he questioned Rice as part of the 10-member commission in Washington. Rice appeared to blame lack of communication between the FBI and CIA on intelligence matters, but that is not an acceptable response, Kerrey said. There were enough warnings that Rice and others in the...

<p>April 9, 2004 -- A politically diverse panel of New Yorkers assembled by The Post generally gave Condoleezza Rice high marks yesterday for showing grace under pressure during her appearance before the 9/11 commission.</p> <p>"I think she did very well," said Morgan Friedman, 28, a political independent who's a computer programmer from Williamsburg.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Condoleezza Rice never seemed to face her toughest audience Thursday. Row after row of families of Sept. 11 victims sat directly behind her in the stark, cavernous hearing room, a silent chorus demanding answers. It was these families whose persistence led to the creation of the commission, and by the time the three-hour grilling of the president's national security adviser was over, they knew little more than when they came.

The testimony in front of the 9/11 Commission yesterday by Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice finally put to rest all of the nonsense that has been out there, peddled by Richard Clarke, that Al Qaeda simply wasn't a concern or a priority for the Bush administration. The three hours of testimony (carried on all the networks) was electric, and a political home run. There were a few heated exchanges between Condi and the liberals on the panel...and she wasn't going to have any of it. This woman is tough as nails. Like I said yesterday, she could run for...

  Condoleezza Rice Testifies:   LIES A SIXTH GRADER WOULD NOT ACCEPTbyMichael C. Ruppert © Copyright 2004, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only. April 8, 2004, 2000 PDT (FTW) – The critical interaction in any criminal investigation of a major crime is between the detective and the suspect. It is the detective's mission to get the suspect to trip up and make statements which can then be presented in court to discredit the suspect, break down his alibis, and prove the suspect's...

College conservatives are wondering why their liberal classmates won't talk about terror Ryan Gorsche says college liberals don't get it WEB EXCLUSIVE By Ryan Gorsche Newsweek Updated: 7:22 p.m. ET April 09, 2004April 9 - Dartmouth conservatives breathed a sigh of relief last week after national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice’s strong performance before the 9/11 Commission. For weeks, the news had been dominated by former White House counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke's unfair and inaccurate portrayal of the Bush administration’s actions before September 11. With her testimony, Rice finally set the record straight. Even before the attacks, Rice told the commission, President...

The national Commission on Terrorist Acts Upon the United States ostensibly has been exploring how the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attacks could have happened and how they might have been prevented. In light of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony Thursday, I, like so many others, have figured out an easy answer: Get the panel to construct a time machine so that all those geniuses who now believe that Sept. 11 easily could have been averted can wave a magic wand and reinvent the past. That's sort of what is going on anyway. Some commissioners seem to have forgotten what...

WASHINGTON - U.S. government agencies issued repeated warnings in the summer of 2001 about potential terrorist plots against the United States masterminded by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), including a possible plan to hijack commercial aircraft, documents show. While there were no specific targets mentioned in the United States, there was intelligence indicating al-Qaida might attempt to crash a plane into the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. And other reports said Islamic extremists might try to hijack a plane to gain release of comrades. The escalating seriousness was reflected in a series of warnings issued by the State Department,...

Fox News outdraws CNN, MSNBC for Rice testimony Reuters, 04.09.04, 4:36 PM ET LOS ANGELES, April 9 (Reuters) - Fox News garnered a wide margin over CNN among audiences watching Thursday's testimony by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, according to data released on Friday. Citing figures from Nielsen Media Research, the networks said Fox News drew an average of 1.921 million total viewers in the period from 9 a.m. to noon ET on Thursday, ahead of CNN's 1.228 million and MSNBC's 470,000. CNN is a unit of Time Warner Inc. (nyse: TWX...

U.S. Supreme Court justice John Marshall is famous for arguing that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." But that was before the emergence of the special commission. Marshall might have written differently had he witnessed one in action using its powers as much for political gain as for legitimate investigation. As a long-time political observer, Dan Rather knows this very well, or at least he did back when Republicans were interested in using hearings as a weapon against President Clinton (more on that later). But now that Democrats are using the 9/11 commission to try and diminish...