And So It Begins: the 9/11 Blame Game, 2004 Edition

On one hand, we have shameless mouthpiece Condi Rice, insisting in New York (NYT link; use nogators/nogators) that the terror attacks happened because prior administrations didn’t do enough to stop terrorism (odd, by the way, that instead of just naming Clinton, she used a phrase that implicitly damns GHWB as well, not to mention the Gipper himself). Er, right, Condi.

As a counterpoint, I’ll note that Clinton’s attempts at neutralizing Osama bin Laden are frequently held up as “wag the dog” scenarios by the Right, happening as they did during the GOP’s 7-year attempt to remove Clinton from office. Make of this what you will.

On the other hand, we have Paula Zahn being horrified that 9/11 is being used for political gain in this election cycle. Is she talking about Condi Rice? No. She means Wes Clark’s comments:

There is no way this administration can walk away from its responsibility for 9/11. You can’t blame something like this on lower-level intelligence officers, however badly they communicated memos with each other. The buck rests with the commander-in-chief, right on George W. Bush’s desk.

Zahn and her guest, Joe Klein, behave as if the notion of a leader taking responsibility for events that happen on his watch comes straight from Red China, or at least Mars. They say nothing, of course, of the aforementioned “not my fault” claim from Rice, and conveniently fail to mention the fact that the Bush White House has done everything in its power to avoid cooperating with the Congressional 9/11 investigation. An inciteful analysis of this little bit can be had at the oft-cited, always compelling Slacktivist.

Who’s politicizing 9/11? Tell me again: which president’s go-it-alone, isolationist, we-ought-not-be-nation-building policies ruled the roost until September 10? You do the math. Obviously the truly responsible parties are (a) atomized bits languishing in Fishkill; and (b) Osama bin Laden, whereabouts unknown. However, the buck does stop at 1600 Pennsylvania. He doesn’t get blame, but as our President he is expected to take responsibility. To do so would be a mark of character, which heretofore has been something that mattered to the GOP. Instead, we get the behavior Slacktivist describes here:

To this very day, the Bush administration is stonewalling the commission led by Tom Kean, the Republican former governor of New Jersey. This determined refusal to investigate smells rotten — it stinks of corruption, complicity and an utter rejection of adult responsibility.

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