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George, that is the most convoluted, twisted up interpretation of the facts that anyone could possibly hope to come up with. Trying to reason with you is hopeless, because you aren't applying any logic or reasoning. Even trying to explain why isn't worth the effort, because it will do no good.

Again I ask you, WHAT ACTION. I have asked you this several times and you keep ducking it only to say that the Administration should have handled its information better. The fact that there was information available that terrorists were considering using airplanes as human bombs does not mean that the Administration had any precise knowledge of when and where an attack would occur or how they would thwart such an attack without this knowledge. It is easy to "connect dots" after the fact but with the information in hand at the time it is a much different matter. You seem to be saying that the Administration is responsible for 911 because if they had acted differently on available information then it would not have happened. There is no indication that that is the case.

Again from Sen. Feinstein herself:

I had no specific data leading to a possible attack.

Why do you keep insisting that Sen. Feinstein had information that the Administration did not or that, armed with her (now self-serving) analysis, an attack could have been averted.

Larry is right. It is hopeless trying to reason with you. You and other Democrats are determined to hang 911 around Bush's neck for political reasons and I am convinced that the majority of the people will see through it. You will not be any more successful with this than you were with any of your other red herrings. However, it is useless for me to try and convince you. In the words of Thomas Payne: "Time makes more converts than reason".

Fascinating how all of you want to find a document that reads: "Mr. President, on the morning of September 11, 2001, Al Quaeda will hijack several airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and several Washington landmarks." And it such a document is not there, you say that he did not have specific information and therefore cannot be held aco****able. I would argue that it is the President's job to get specific information if it is out there. And, in this case, we know it was.

What we do know is that at least Senator Feinstein was given information that led her to anticipate an imminent attack and try to get the White House to react to it. Of course she had no specific information. No one else did either. That's the problem! The infrormation was available, the White House did not pursue getting it. (And THAT is a misjudgement -- to not pursue it) The question is...why not? The information was there. Why didn't the White House pursue information gathering.

THAT JBryant is one decision that was made -- NOT to pursue information gathering to the extent they got proper information. NOT to have interpreted the same, and probably more information, than Sentaor Feinstein had in a more accurate way.

And if they had it, what could they have done, JBryant?

The advisories sent out by the FAA to the airplies never mentioned the possibility of an imminent attackon American soil. They were all general in nature and spoke of attacks in other countries. This was a decision NOT to send out more specific advisories. In the past such advisories were sent, but no decision was made to get more information on this and hence no specific advisory could be sent.

No advisories were sent to the airports. And yet, in previous years, airports were advised and, at times, security was stepped up. This was a decision -- to not advise the airports and order an increase in security.

Had the White House pursued the information they had in the same way Senator Feinstein was trying to urge them to pursue it, there were MANY actions would could have been taken. Do I know them all? Of course not.

You see, JBryant, you want to get a list of very specific actions which could have been taken so that you can take each one apart and show that they would not necessarily have prevented it. Perhaps not.

But the fact remains, this White House made a decision -- or failed to make one -- about whether or not to pursue with great intensity and immediacy, an investigation as to exactly what was going on -- why were these warnings coming in, what did the intelligence community know, what were possible actions that Al Quaeda might take?

Had they reacted in the same way as senator Feinstein, they would have been presented with all sorts of options for actions to take. Then they could have made decisions based on that. But they never even got that far!

As I said earlier, no one knows for sure if this could have been prevented -- but it certainly seems like it would have been more possible to prevent it if the White House had taken a very different course of actions in July and August. They didn't. And because they didn't, they failed to protect the United States from attack.

Now, why criticizing the White House for not taking adequate action to obtain and analyze information -- the information that was already available! -- is considered partisan politics, I don't know. But apparently, many of you feel that a citizen cannot look at how a President has handled a job and criticize him for what appears to be a failure unless it is partisan in nature. Others, of course, equate criticizing the President with criticizing America.

So be it. Nothing I can do if you feel my only concern is to score political points or to attack the foundations of this country.

Don't be silly George. That is not what I meant and you know it.

Information specific to this attack that would have enabled us to avert it? We know no such thing.

Again you misstate the facts. All she said was this:

What I said last July on CNN was that I was deeply concerned as to whether our house was in order to prevent a terrorist attack.

Quit saying that she knew or even thought that an attack was "imminent".

You could say that about practically anything bad that has happened throughout history. This seems like a rather cheap way, with the gift of hindsight, to hold someone responsible for what we all know was a totally unforeseen event.

Sorry George. Before this thread started I may have given you the benefit of the doubt on this but you have shown yourself to be so impervious to logic or reason and so dogged in your pursuit of Bush that you could only be looking at this issue as a Democrat and not simply as an American. I do not denegate your patriotism or your love of country in any way but I believe you to be blinded to the facts by your dislike of Bush and your zeal to seize on even the slightest indication that he may have made a mistake.

I believe that Democrat politicians are placing politics and power before country and for that they will pay the price. I want to make it plain to Democrats in general that I do not place them in the same category. Most I know are willing to let the facts come out before they stampede to a conclusion that Bush is responsible for 911. I believe when all the facts do come out that he will be vindicated.

It's been fun George but I have other things I need to do and I have spent way too much of my time on this fools errand as it is. By the way, check the spelling of my name. Unless you are deliberately trying to aggravate me in which case nice try.

The Democratic party has for years (certainly since 1992) put partisan politics ahead of the country. The party is bankrupt of ideas and has for the most part campaigned on trying to smear most of their opponents.

One of their MO's is to throw as much spagetti against the wall and hope some of it will stick. Ken Starr was well liked and viewed as a very fair arbiter by people of both parties until the smear campaign against him started. The attempt to smear Kathleen Harris in Florida was out of the same play book. Need I mention the women of the Clinton legacy? Seldom will you find facts to substantiate the charges made. You *will* find hyperbole to the nth degree. Such as the Clinton Gore mantra that Republicans want to starve children, kill old people, and poison the air and water. Yeah right.

When Democrats throw this stuff out there, their intent is two fold. If at all possible, they hope some one can prove it. (Seldom happens.) The other is to talk about it and engage the subject as long as possible so that those who will not think for themselves will hear it repeated enough times that they start to believe it. This is what our friend George is currently doing here.

I personally find no benefit in engaging in these "Have you stopped beating your wife" arguments with those who would use this as political strategy.

Now I'm not saying this is the belief of all registered Democrats. But I am saying it is the way of the party leaders, and many of the followers eat it right up.

And yes, the Republican party has plenty of their own faults and I don't much care for them either. But they have never shown the testasterone the Democrats have in trying to make political hay out of everything. Sheesh! :rolleyes:

But, George, I still like ya'!

I think that the implication was that since the President knew, then the airlines should have been put on notice.

But these "analyses" are things that college students write up all the time. (Anybody out there do graduate work on foreign affars?) I'm sure that the White House recieves hundreds of these warnings; which ones are they to act on?

I forgot something:

Who knows how far up the chain reports get; the intellegence report the FBI and CIA made was in 1999. Do you want to guess what was more important than Osama in 1999? Me, I think it was Y2K. And I'm not talking about the computers.

Jumping into this one late and I don't have the enrgy to wade through all the posts.

I agree with much of George's first statement (that's a first!). Enron was knee deep in California's artificial electricity crisis and the Feds let it happen. The experiments that we perform in our lab are very power hungry. They are also potentially dangerous should the power suddenly go off in the middle of an experiment. So, as ops manager I checked Cal ISO every day, knew where we were in the blackout rotation, etc... The strange thing was that the system would run quite happily at 30 something odd GWatts of demand, the problems occurred when the sytem was not peaking, but when demand was down in the high 20's of GWatts. Right now the system is showing available resources as 34 GWatts yet we haven't added any major power plants in the last year (well maybe a couple of small ones). FERC found nothing unusual about this. Indirectly Bush is involved as he can only make decisions based on the information given him by those working for him. Lay isn't around now and FERC is fessin' up that there were some improprieties going on. Enron wasn't the only company involved. Enron is going out of business, yet the California utility customer is left owing gazillions of dollars - who'w going to get this money?

The lesson from this - California needs to become the most power hungry state in the union. That way when we reach crisis level it won't hurt to turn off a few things. We are fast going the same way with water. The water districts keep putting the screws to us - the city allows building to go on unabated but adds no extra water capacity (or sewage). We're just told to reduce consumption and they put the rates up to enforce this. At some point we will not be able to reduce consumption anymore without a major impact. Course at that point it will take years to bring more water supply on line. And that's from a California Democratic government.

Sorry George, don't agree with you second statement about the hijackings. We have now been informed that another round of attacks are on the way. There are no specifics. Should the country be locked down to prevent this? If so, for how long? And against what? Then the terrorists win. The rules have changed and we are now all potentially combatants, like it or not. I've booked my vacation to Europe for this summer.

Sorry Iain, I'm not buying the victim status for California energy consumers. California's problems began when the California Legislature decided to "deregulate", and I use that word advisedly, the energy industry at the producer level while, at the same time, capping prices at the consumer level. Anyone familiar with econ 101 can tell you that is a recipe for shortages. Also, a part of the Legislature's "deregulation" included forbidding distributers to also be producers. Producers could charge any price the market would bear while distributers had to sell to consumers at a capped price leaving the distributors to eat the difference. This, coupled with the fact that California has added no new generating capacity in the last ten years left California at the mercy of out of state producers who were beyond the control of the California Assembly. Distributers lost their shirts, consumers (because of the capped prices) never had any incentive to conserve, and tax payers ultimately had to pick up the costs. I don't doubt that there were some bad players at the producer level who took advantage of the situation and I would even stipulate that Enron was probably the worst of them. But California's energy problems can be laid directly at the doorstep of California's political leaders. No other state experienced any of these problems while dealing with many of the same producers and Enron by itself or in concert with other energy companies could not have brought about California's energy woes.

Edit: Rereading your post, maybe you weren't trying to make that point (that California was a victim of greedy energy companies). Sorry if I misinterpreted. Or did I?

Two words: Cynthia McKinney

The most racist, bigotted, and stupid member of Congress.

A Democrat that even the other Democrats wish would go away.

"It's time for her to go" - Al Gore

JBryan - was trying to make a few points! There were many problems with deregulation and price gouging in California. George indicated Bush was involved and I was agreeing. But as you pointed out Gray Davis's buddies fared no better (in the deregualtion process and dealing with the aftermath). It's politics that is the problem! Maybe a Dictatorship would be better!

However I do not believe there was ever a shortage of electricity. It is strange that the state has not come close to a shortage since last summer and we still have not added any new generating facilities. Why? If you look at the electrical infrastructure for the western US you will notice a grid of transmission facilities under the loose coordination of the WSCC (Western Systems Coordinating Council). The purpose of this is to share power. The system includes border regions of Canada and Mexico. When it is frigid in the north and mild in the south, power can be shifted northward to take up demand. When it is mild in the north and cooking in the deserts, power can be shifted southward. Power peaks in the midwest are shifted in time by one to two hours - while we are still at work, others are home cooking dinner (there's a peak around 6.00 pm when everyone starts cooking and watching TV).

For all this to work requires a respectable transmission system. If I understand what Enron (and others) did they max'd out the system using fuzzy math, ie they artificially shifted power from A to B then back to A via a separate route (this of course was on paper, as the power will go by the most direct route). By using large enough numbers they persuaded the system operators that certain transmission lines were max'd out and thus no more power could be transmitted through them. There was more power available in the west, just no way to move it (supposedly). This then allowed Enron to charge whatever price it wanted. It wasn't a free market, it was a monopoly. Howeve, I don't know that they broke any laws and you have to give them credit for pushing the rules to the max (rules by and large set up by politicians).

Iain,

You make some interesting points. I don't know why there are no shortages now, I had assumed that demand was lower but I don't know that for a fact. That is some fancy footwork by Enron that you describe but it is certainly in character with a lot of the other schemes associated with them. As for involvement by Bush, I haven't seen any evidence of it but if any comes to light, well, let the chips fall where they may.

Actually, there were a couple of new generating facilities brought on line in the last year. These facilities were complete or nearly complete and were sitting idle waiting for one bureaucratic approval or another. The "crisis" put the bureaucrats on the hotseat and the permits were issued. There are a couple more generators that are being upgraded, having obtained permits that they never could have gotten otherwise.

Now that the prices have gone up, there does not seem to be a problem. This may have something to do with the fact that the suspiciously large percentage of generators that were shut down for "maintenance" (simultanelously, and during a time of peak demand) all now seem to run just fine. Interesting that the requests for bids sent out to do this "maintenance" did not contain the normal penalty clauses for failure to complete on time.

It may also have to do with the spotlight now placed on the suppliers. Enron may very well have played a part in it, although if they did I doubt they were alone. The power supplier in San Diego (can't remember the name) almost certainly played a part, as they were the first to spike rates when they could, sometimes by as much as 300%.

Then there is of course, the peculiar wording in the deregulation agreement that capped the retail sale price of power but not the wholesale price. That particular provision appears to have been voided. Too, the provisions that allowed Edison to dump poor investments and old crummy generating plants at ratepayer expense have pretty much been exercised so they should calm down a bit as well.

Which brings us to what to do about it. Our governor, Mr. Davis, is a consumate politician, but not much of a businessman. Having transferred a 9+ billion dollar surplus from the State coffers to the energy companies (the result of some poorly conceived and hastily written contracts for long term power supply), he is now faced with the unpleasant task of hiking taxes - substantially. Not something the man-who-would-be-president wants to do.

Being the plu-perfect politician that he is, you can bet he is doing everything in his power to try to get some of these contracts rescinded - as well he should. The Enron debaucle may be just the "out" he needed to do it. I don't care how he does it, but I hope he pulls it off.

I'll worry about his presidency when the time comes. Meantime, he seems pretty well ensconced as govenor of California. The ultra right wing guy the Republicans put up - elected thanks in part to a hefty campaign contribution from none other than The Hon. Gov. Gray Davis himself (to be sure the more moderate Rebublican candidate did not get the nomination) does not have a prayer. Not in California, not any time soon.

Should be an interesting summer.

Isn't amazing that after hearing for all these months how dumb and inept President Bush is, he is now accused of knowing too much and of being a devious manipulator?

The facts as we know them now are that not only was Bush attuned to terrorist attacks before 911 but that his administration devoted a great deal of effort and concern towards the "noise" that was indicating the possibility of an attack all through June, July, and August. It is just a tragic fact of life that one cannot protect 360 degrees 24 hours a day. That is why the best strategy against terrorism is to attack them and not just to prepare for their attacks.

The Clinton foreign policy throughout his two terms can only be characterized as feckless, aimless, and totally reactive. There never were any clear long term goals (unless you count turning our sovreignty over to the UN). In the end, his foreign policy seemed to be aimed totally at his own self-aggrandizement. It's also curious how the strategy from the left going forward is to blame Clinton's failings on Lewinsky instead of the other way round. Bill Clinton is an incredibly gifted individual and the real tragedy of Clinton is the utter waste of such potential.

What profiling? Profiling is not allowed, remember? Not "PC". This, of course, is the determination made by Norman Mineta (Democrat) Secretary of Transportation appointed by Bush as a (misguided, I believe) sop to the left. Screening is now done totally at random. That is why your sweet aunt and not yourself was screened. The last time I flew the determination was based solely on a number stamped on your boarding card. Brainless? Yes. But who started us down this anti-profiling road. There were some real abuses in the past when profiling was used inappropriately but now we find ourselves in a situation where even your sweet aunt and Ray Charles are singled out for searches.

I agree that we should always consider these important questions but that is not the point George was making. If you read his original post you will see that his point was that the Bush Administration is A) corrupt and B) incompetent. It is only after he is flushed out by the facts that he begins to retreat to a more moderate position.

I believe an investigation of the ways in which our intelligence services work and interact with one another is in order and I am not in total agreement with all of the security measures in place. In the end, the responsibility falls On Bush and Bush alone but outright attacks on his leadership in advance of any of the relevant facts is, in my view, totally irresponsible in times like these.

Ah, the stupid American. Probably so caught up in trying to figure out how to properly fill out a butterfly ballot, that they completely missed the events of 911. Or the action by the administration that followed afterwards.

Yes, those ignorant Americans. Too caught up in creating and maintaining the world's greatest nation to properly examine their own political leaders. how silly of us!

I'm sorry to burst your bubble of elitic smugness, but the American people tend to be a little sharper than you think. Witness the Democratic party turning on a political dime just this past weekend. After throwing baseless charges to the wind for almost a week, you could see the political horns start to shrink on Friday and by Sunday they were mere nubs. The reason that the pols turned down the volume on the anti-Bush political noise is that the American people recognized it for exactly what it was - unfounded propaganda. The American people know that party affiliation should not be a factor in international affairs or in war. And yes, we are involved in a war, a different and new kind of war, and the American people also recognize that fact.

And lastly, the American people are smart enough to figure out that no political administration, either Democrat or Republican, can intercept every threat, or provide complete public safety from any deranged person or terrorist organization.

Whenever a politician starts to consider his constituents dumb and ignorant, is usually the day he can start planning his retirement, for his position just became temporary.

"There are lots of similar stories - 65-year old ladies with their grandkids and bags full of Disneyworld souvenirs getting full frisks and the like -- the inconvenience is absolutely fine, but the method of profiling seems ludicrous."

I was under the impression the last time I flew (a couple of weeks ago) that the searching was completely random - ie: that a number came up and that particular person in line was the one that got searched. I don't think its got anything to do with profiling.