What about the Condi Rice testimony to the 9/11 Commission. Some have categorized her statements as evasive, combative and unwilling to accept blame. Evasive? She refused to give short, one word or one-line answers. Few responses to any question can be made without qualification. To understand the answer, one must understand the context of the events in which the question, and therefore the answer, refers. That cannot be done in one sentence or word.
Combative? When an interrogator asks a question, then refuses to allow the respondent to give a full answer, only seeking out takes from which to establish the interrogator's agenda, the respondent has every right to press for opportunity to answer fully and not be limited to a partial answer.
Unwilling to accept blame? For what? In office for some 280 days after the contentious aftermath of the elections, retaining holdovers from the Clinton administration for both continuity and simplicity of transition, the Bush administration not only inherited perhaps some sour grapes with the intellectual property, but also inherited something that has been ingrained in Washington and our national/political/governmental culture. The restraint place on intelligence gathering on American soil.
Much has been said about the inability of the CIA and FBI to "connect the dots" with the tidbits of information they had separately gathered. First of all, it is so very easy to see the image after the fact from an elevated view. While in the process of gathering information it's not so clear. Even if there is one investigator who is receiving all the data, until enough pieces come together to allow him to see a pattern, he's against the wall.
When there are dozens of investigators spread across the country, each perusing information, not as part of a grand investigation, but as many individual investigations, none of them has enough of the pieces to begin to form the puzzle. Perhaps a change in the FBI procedure to develop a database or clearinghouse for this investigatory information would help. That is the basis for the threat terrorism information center, the TTIC, to gather this information from many diverse government sources, analyze it and look for patterns forming.
The other part of the accusation involving the CIA is even deeper rooted in basic American rights. For decades, I cannot say just how long, there has been an abhorrence to covert investigation, of the type the CIA conducts, on Americans, on American soil. Not only is this viewed as trampling on our civil and privacy rights as citizens, should it take place, it is prevented by law. The CIA, by statutory regulation cannot spy on US citizens in America. By extension, the sharing of information by the CIA with domestic agencies is both culturally and legally limited for the same reasons, fear of abuse of the information and the methodology of collection.
So we as a society have decided to avoid the problems of the internal state security organs such as the Soviet KGB and the Nazi SS by telling our very necessary foreign spy agencies their work ends when they cross our borders.
I don't have a problem with that. But don't then turn around and accuse the same agencies of failure when had that information been shared and the knowledge made public, there would have been an outcry of violation of civil and privacy rights from the very same people who are now accusing these agencies of breech of duty.
The Cole, Kobar Towers, the '93 Trade Center bombings, Mogadishu, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998. Where was the Clinton administration on these? Where was their response? Where were the critics who now paint the Bush administration as uninterested in terrorism and want to hang on Bush the failures of Clinton in responding to terrorist threat?
Is there a political agenda here? You bet!

I just completed a difficult task. For the past year I've maintained an online list of those who have lost their lives in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The escalated conflict that past few days has taken a terrible toll and as of the DOD official reports today there have been 29 lives lost since April 4th. This makes for a total of 631 young military men and women who have given their lives for the Iraqi people to enjoy freedom. A sacrifice lost on not only many Iraqi's but sadly many American's also.
May we never forget their sacrifice and that of their families.

OK, OK. I was a bit over the top including John McCain in my list with Kerry and Dean. It should have been Daschle. While McCain has oft been critical of the Bush administration, perhaps sour grapes over the primary loss in the last election, he has shown support for the effort in Iraq.
In a recent interview with the Detroit Free Press, McCain said, "But I would like to add that we cannot afford to lose this. You could argue whether we went in or not, whether we should have gone in or not. That's an interesting academic exercise in whether it was justified. I happen to believe it was. But we are and we can't lose now. We cannot lose, the stakes are just too high. The consequences of failure are."
He right, we can argue about some things, but when it comes to whether to stay, or cut and run, there is no argument. We cannot fail, we cannot capitulate, we cannot run.
Sorry for misrepresenting you John.

Seems like Bruce Tinsley, er... Mallard, gets it. The further to the left they are, the more rivals to George Bush call on the UN to take the lead in Iraq and the war on terror. The more Dean, or Kerry, or McCain (yes, McCain) tries to dilute the argument about Iraq with calls to have dialogue, discussion, middle ground, negotiations and understanding for our terrorist enemies. The more they try to turn Iraqis and US soldiers into victims of George Bush, the more Al Qaeda and Osama likes them

Again, this is the Al quad terrorist political party working hard to influence our American political system through naivete(?), ignorance(?) or sheer stupidity. At least I would like to think those who are being used by bin Laden and his types fit that mold, and are not deliberately following his bidding for their own ill advised political gain. Could it be?.

If the Spanish voters thought they were protecting themselves on March 14 by voting out Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservative government that supported the war on terrorism in favor of the Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero they were sorely mistaken. Zapatero promised to remove Spanish troops from Iraq and thus, supposedly, take Spaniards out of harms way as it concerns terrorism.
This past week the Zapatero government announced that while they would pull troops from Iraq, they would increase the Spanish contingent in Afghanistan as a show of support for the war against terrorism.
The socialist government, and the Spanish people have just discovered the reward of their capitulation to terrorism. In an Al Qaeda communiqué, the terrorist organization has demanded Spanish troops be withdrawn from both Iraq and Afghanistan or, in their words, “we will declare war on you and ... convert your country into an inferno and your blood will flow like rivers." And Spanish voters thought they could avoid this by getting rid of those “bad conservatives” who got them in this terrorist mess. Cal Thomas predicted this scenario in his March 16 column.
Now the Zapatero government has a decision to make. Will they bend their knee to the terrorist party and allow them to effective run the country through threat and intimidation? Or will they draw the proverbial line in the sand and say, “no more!” If they choose the former, the threats and intimidation will continue ad infinitum, demanding increasing capitulation until the democratic government of Spain will cease to exist.
Or they can choose to say, “we calculated wrong, we will not bend our knee to terrorism, we will fight you where ever we find you.”
A decision either way will bring troubles on the country. The difference being that to capitulate will bring a never ending downward spiral that will result in subjugation, loss of freedom and national pride. The alternative, to stand up to the terrorists, will surely bring more violence. But as the people stand strong and tall, as they fight this threat that would take away their way of life, they will find their strength and pride, their freedom and dignity.
It will be a long hard road; it may well take many years. But that is the price Spanish voters paid on March 14 when, thinking they could take the easy way out and appease the terrorists, found there is no appeasement. Terrorism, by its very nature is never satisfied. It wants more and more control over the lives, freedoms and fortunes of those whom it sets its sights on.
America, take note today. Should we repeat the mistake of the Spaniards and vote into office one who will succumb to terrorisms threat, we too will find ourselves on that same path, faced with that same choice.
A right decision on November 2 will tell terrorists they cannot bully us. That America’s people are "strong and unwilling to bend to the sword of fear and violence. Terrorists are not safe from the strength and dignity of Americans. That they cannot find safe haven from this fight we are bringing to their hiding places and refuges."
Should we fail in that test on that fateful Tuesday, the fear, the violence will be unrelenting.