On His Watch

Linnet has a beautifully written post up at Looking at the Stars titled On His Watch, on yesterday's release of previously expurgated sections of the 9/11 Commission Report. Please go read it. The Times says,

The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.

Linnet's take:

The one awful thing about the political fallout of the September 11th is this: the American people didn't ask the simplest, most obvious, most logical question. We didn't ask "Why did this happen on your watch, Mr. Bush?"

No, we said "Oh, Mr. President, you're so brave for happening to be in office and saying appropriate-but-obvious things after these devastating attacks! Protect us, you strong, manly leader, you! We'll give you absolute power over our lives and liberties, because we need you to protect us! And you get an extra-special gold star for being President during this horrible time!"

Bush got credit for having the 9/11 attacks happen during his term. Failing to stop the most deadly attack on American soil resulted in him getting political carte blanche.

Pardon me, but what the fuck?

What the fuck, indeed. Americans should be screaming in the streets about this. We should be making the * apologists in the media, in Congress, and in the administration itself miserable right now, hounding them for lying, hounding them into revealing the truth at long last, and way, way too late.