 By Michael Reagan April 15, 2004
As just about anybody with two cents worth of common sense knows, given the circumstances prior to September 11, 2001, nobody - nobody at all, could have prevented the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That, however, has not stopped the demagogue party from reaching down into the slime and throwing handfuls of mud at a president trying his darnedest to fight the desperate war on terrorism while at the same time being forced to contend with dishonest partisan attacks at his rear. With absolutely no evidence to support their insinuations that the president somehow knew there was an attack coming, at which targets it was to be aimed, and when it would occur, they had the gall to suggest that this was indeed the case. Of course they never come out and make that charge publicly. Not even the sleazy Richard Ben-Veniste dares to go that far, but the accusation, though unspoken, lies just below the surface where they hope it will emerge in the minds of the voters on Election Day this November. They tried to convince the voters that the famous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) contained specific warnings and demanded its release. They hinted darkly that the title of document that warned that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack the U.S. homeland told the whole story. When the White House released it, they refused to admit that it contained nothing that could have led to action that might have prevented 9/11. As even CBS News reported, it did not contain specific warnings of any imminent threats. Any! But facts don't mean anything to these people they deal in innuendo - they know it's easier to peddle snake oil than to it is to develop effective medications. Suppose that the mayor of a big city were to be given a written warning that gang members were getting ready to sell a huge amount of drugs and commit murder in his city, and that it was his job to stop it. But there is no way the mayor could stop it based on the information in the Mayor's Daily Briefing which doesn't say where and when the drugs are to be sold, who is going to be murdered, where the murder is to occur and when it will happen. And when the major drug sale and murders do occur, the mayor's political opponents charge he must take the blame because he ignored the warning that they were going to happen. In the PDB, most of the information dealt with events in the late 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president, and that is a fact that scares his party silly. It's one reason why they are trying to pin the blame for 9/11 on George W. Bush they want to divert the public's attention from Bill Clinton who frittered away several opportunities to deal with bin Laden when he had the chance. They also fear being blamed for the activities of some of their most prominent party members such as Sen. Teddy Kennedy, who consistently sought to cripple the very intelligence agencies the Democrats now criticize for failing to provide information that might have revealed bin Laden's 9/11 plans. According to the magazine Human Events, the Republican Study Committee in the House has released a memo revealing the shocking extent of House Democrats' overwhelming opposition to intelligence funding since 1996. According to the memo, 154 House Democrats voted to cut the U.S. intelligence budget in 1996, while 158 Democrats did the same in 1997. Although fewer Democrats voted to cut the intelligence budget in 1999 (only 61), almost all opposition to intelligence spending came from Democrats. One Democrat, California's Rep. Maxine Waters, actually called for abolishing the CIA in March, 1997. These people have no shame.
 mereagan@hotmail.com Distributed to subscribers for publication by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc.
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