Terrorism and the Democrats

Two stories looking at the failure of the Democratic Party to face up to the threat of terrorism.

First, Melana Zyla Vickers looks at what's really coming out of the 9-11 commission investigation, at TCS yesterday:

Until a few days ago, presidential candidate John Kerry was able to take all the shots he wanted at President Bush's record in the war on terror, while remaining out of critical range himself. But last week's 9/11 commission hearings changed all that.

The hearings presented a Democratic record on terrorism that is marred by fundamental policy fumbles and ultimately fatal misjudgments. Of course, some of the errors in fighting terrorism in the 1990s could have been — and were — made or repeated by the Republican administration of George W. Bush. But a top-five list drawn from the testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and the reports prepared by commission staff, reveals errors that stemmed from what might be described as the post Cold War, Democratic world-view....

Second, J. Michael Waller looks at one all-too-real aspect of the Clinton legacy, at WND yesterday:

Many of former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke's friends are saying his anti-Bush diatribe has cost him his credibility.

When Clarke fingered President Bush for having "botched the response to 9-11," he and other critics left out a major point: Until just two months before the attack, nearly all the senior counterterrorism and intelligence officials on duty at the time were holdovers from the Clinton administration.

From the CIA to the Pentagon to the National Security Council, Clinton holdovers populated the Bush administration's intelligence and counterterrorism community....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 03/31/04 07:17:51 AM
Categorized as Political.