I just called Tom Daschle an idiot on national TV!

[Nic Name]

Not quoted by NBN on national TV

... accusing the Bush administration of somehow anticipating the events of Sept. 11, and failing to act.

I think the gist of the criticism is for the administration's failure to anticipate and failure to act.

With information indicating the plans of Al Qaeda to use airplanes to attack builidngs that was circulating in the FBI, and even the Library of Congress, the government cannot continue to say that the concept of suicide hijackers using a planes as missiles targeting buildings in the USA could not have been anticipated by anyone. In fact, it was anticipated by several people within agencies of the government.

This is not a partisan criticism. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations should have been doing more to reform FAA, INS, CIA and FBI. That is hindsight for everyone. But it was the foresight of many others whose anticipation was not acted upon sufficiently by either administration.

The attacks of 9/11 were a wake-up for the government.

The government can't argue that, without the attacks of 9/11, they couldn't have been expected to anticipate such attacks and to prevent such attacks by eliminating known vulnerabilities. They can't seriously say they were doing everything that could reasonably be done. The government is trying to characterize this as a failure of intelligence. Well, the intelligence community is now going on the record to the extent that they can, given the limitations on their communications of classified information, to make a case that the failure was not of intelligence, but of leadership.

Everything the government is doing now to effect airport security and reform immigration and law inforcement should have been a priority of government well before 9/11. They know that now. There is a reasonable case being made that they knew or should have known that years ago.

Some argue that, although the government knew attacks of this nature were possible, even very likely, they also believed there would be no public tolerance of the limitations of civil liberties and personal inconveniences that would be required to prevent such attacks in anticipation.

They may have a point.

Maybe everyone had to get their priorities aligned for the government to do what it ought to have done, long ago.