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Fri. Jul 23, 2004

Congressional Priorities

As I’m sure you know, the 9/11 Commission report is out, and it pulls few punches: “America’s leaders failed to grasp the gravity of terrorist threats before the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, taking actions so feeble they never even slowed the al-Qaida plotters, a national commission said in a blistering report Thursday. The panel warned ‘we are not safe’ — and called for major intelligence changes.”

We’re going to hear these phrases again. Because here we finally have the report nearly 3 years after the event, and our leaders are still failing “to grasp the gravity” of their inaction. Their plans for taking up these recommendations are “so feeble” they mostly begin in January, 2005. Oh, and have you heard we’ll likely be attacked long before then?

Commissioner James Thompson put it bluntly: “If something bad happens while these recommendations are sitting there, the American people will quickly fix political responsibility for failure and that responsibility may last generations.”

The Commission laid a challenge before Congress and the President. Here’s the recommendations, in a form the American people can read and understand. And they will. And when you sit on your thumbs while simultaneously warning us of the threat, they will judge you for it.

In recent months, we’ve been warned and told repeatedly, they’re coming. They will likely attack us again before the election. And now that we have a massive effort condensed to a report and recommendations … it’s time for Congress to go on vacation (the President will soon follow, with his traditional month of vacation in August).

When Congress returns in September, they will finish taking up important matters like a flag burning amendment, and trying to revive the gay marriage issue. Important partisan wedge issues that must be concluded prior to the election. They say their legislative agenda is so full of such important things, things apparently more important than protecting America from future attack, it’s highly unlikely any of the commission’s dramatic recommendations will even be considered by Congress before the election.

The election. You know, the one they claim will probably be preceded by an Al Qaeda attack. Can’t deal with this, until after that.

At which point we’ll have to create a new commission, call it the 11/1 Commission. In three years, we’ll get their recommendations. If there’s anybody in Congress left alive to give them to.

But I should be fair. There is still some measurable level of sense in Congress.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Evan Bayh of Indiana suggested a special session to move more of the recommendations forward.

“Delay is our enemy, and time is important. And that’s why I think it’s so important that, what Joe and Arlen and Evan say, that if necessary, let’s do a special session,” Mr. McCain said.

The reactions from members of Congress made it clear that the September 11 report and recommendations will quickly become an issue in the presidential and congressional campaigns, especially with regard to homeland security.

To hell with “the reactions from members of Congress.” They damn well better be worried about the reactions of average Americans. If there’s another attack before the election, after we’ve watched our leaders fiddling while claiming Rome is about to burn, it’s not too late to vote against every incumbent on the ballot. I think they severely underestimate the well of anger that will wash over them in the aftermath of a new attack. We may not be able to target a nation-state responsible for dead Americans, but if there’s a new attack while these recommendations sit inert, we can now find some responsible parties in DC, for sure.

And every time Congress works on some stupid irrelevant inconsequential issue like an Amendment to ban the HUGE problem we have with flag burning, I’m going to be here to tell them to stuff their partisan playthings where the sun don’t shine, and get back to the business of protecting Americans.

I hope you will be, too. Every time you see them bickering about extending tax cuts, gay marriage, flag burning, and other “hot button” partisan issues, know that they think those are the things that are most important. Those are the topics they think will “fire up the base” and get them re-elected. We need to change their mind about that.

We need to point out, “the last time I saw a flag burning, it was flying in front of World Trade Center Building 5 on the morning of 9/11, and that’s the kind of flag burning I want Congress to prioritize and stop.” There is no more important matter, and we should be holding our elected representative’s feet to the fire.

Now.