Looking for Something In All The Wrong Places

Today, Bill Safire (like several columnists before him) complains that the 9/11 Commission is focused on the wrong questions:

Today we are engaged in the wrong debate. The brouhaha about whether the new Bush administration treated the threat of Al Qaeda as "important" versus "urgent" is history almost as ancient as whether F.D.R. did enough to avert Pearl Harbor.

Funny.... When the 9/11 Commission was formed, numerous columnists from the political left and center complained that its focus was too narrow, and that it appeared to be designed (by the Bush Administration and the Republican majority in Congress) to avoid a full inquiry into the most crucial issues surrounding 9/11 and terrorism prevention for fear that the President might be embarrassed - with particular criticism focused on the selection of Henry Kissinger as its proposed Chair. Now that it looks like the President is going to be embarrassed anyway, the right has started to whinge (while the left remains silent), making it appear that this inquiry has become far less about finding out "what happened and why it happened" and much more a game of political "gotcha". Safire concludes,

Let the floo floo birds look back in anger, scheduling the 9/11 commission's report on the opening day of the Democratic convention, hoping to persuade voters that Bush's concern with Saddam's threat diminished our suppression of Osama.

Other birds who dare to look ahead will wonder: Are those fixated on fixing blame avoiding the needed debate about how best to get to the root of terror in the Middle East today?

Safire deliberately fails to mention the fact that the 9/11 Commission asked the Bush Administration for an extension that would have delayed the release of its report until after the election, and Bush refused. And Safire conveniently forgets to mention the drooling loonies on the right who are so backward-focused they want to blame everything that has happened during Bush's watch on the Clinton Administration.

But beyond that, why is it only now that he is asking us to look ahead? Those of us who have been looking ahead for years had concerns about domestic terrorism before 9/11, and had grave concerns about the Bush Administration's so-called "war on terror" even before it became strangely focused on Iraq. "Don't look back - only look ahead" isn't great advice when it only comes after somebody has taken you down a blind alley.

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