# If they stonewall the 9/11 report, can they hold the election?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 5, 2004, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452 "2004-04-05T23:04:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/81 "2004-04-07T17:53:21Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> The political grandstanding of the Dems and Richard Clarke’s historical fiction books tour forced Rice to testify in public instead of in private. They have set a very damaging precedent for future administrations.
>
> One likely outcome is that, in order to avoid being skewered by holdovers from a prior administration, future presidents will dismiss all of the existing national security appointees and advisors. This will mean a significant knowledge drain as new presidents take office. How does this help our national security.
I propose that the blame there lies on the shoulders of Bush and friends. It isn’t like Richard Clarke just randomly decided to make up stories to sell a book (though granted, you might view it as such). As you say, the “political grandstanding” and “chronic lies” of the Reps forced Clarke (and others) to leak the truth.
Oh no! Condi Rice had to testify and tell the truth because someone ratted out their blatant lies! Poor baby! It is the end of the world! O\_o
The only administration that would totally clean house and install their own drones obviously has some major plotting and scheming to hide. I doubt the public (much less Congress) would appreciate such a gesture.
---
### Author:  [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2004, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/82 "2004-04-07T18:07:38Z")
> [@Zagadka](#):
>
> I propose that the blame there lies on the shoulders of Bush and friends. It isn’t like Richard Clarke just randomly decided to make up stories to sell a book (though granted, you might view it as such). As you say, the “political grandstanding” and “chronic lies” of the Reps forced Clarke (and others) to leak the truth.
>
> Oh no! Condi Rice had to testify and tell the truth because someone ratted out their blatant lies! Poor baby! It is the end of the world! O\_o
>
> The only administration that would totally clean house and install their own drones obviously has some major plotting and scheming to hide. I doubt the public (much less Congress) would appreciate such a gesture.
I find it far more plausible that Clarke lied in his book - and the facts support it.
Try reading the December 2000 [A NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY FOR A GLOBAL AGE](http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nss/nss_dec2000_contents.htm) - the Clinton Adminitration’s final report to Congress about national security. Al Qaeda isn’t even mentioned; and bin Laden is named only four times. This quite plainly contradicts Clarke’s assertion that AQ was a top priority.
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2004, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/83 "2004-04-07T18:15:39Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> I find it far more plausible that Clarke lied in his book - and the facts support it.
>
> Try reading the December 2000 [A NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY FOR A GLOBAL AGE](http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nss/nss_dec2000_contents.htm) - the Clinton Adminitration’s final report to Congress about national security. Al Qaeda isn’t even mentioned; and bin Laden is named only four times. This quite plainly contradicts Clarke’s assertion that AQ was a top priority.
And all the other tens of thousands of pages of documentation that Bush won’t let out doesn’t count?
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### Author:  [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2004, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/84 "2004-04-07T18:19:09Z")
And how many times were _al Qaeda_ and/or Osama bin Laden mentioned by the Bush Administration between 1/20/2001 and 9/10/2001? [**Zilch.**](http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=39854)
(Okay, once, if you include a passing reference to the Taliban. Still less than four.)
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### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/85 "2004-04-07T22:05:48Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> I find it far more plausible that Clarke lied in his book - and the facts support it.
>
> Try reading the December 2000 [A NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY FOR A GLOBAL AGE](http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nss/nss_dec2000_contents.htm) - the Clinton Adminitration’s final report to Congress about national security. Al Qaeda isn’t even mentioned; and bin Laden is named only four times. This quite plainly contradicts Clarke’s assertion that AQ was a top priority.
which part of clarke’s lying book deals with the crawford plan to avenge the cole–a direct attack on a military asset!!!
I understand that one of clarke’s lies is that bush sat around with his tghunb up his ass, after definitive responsibility for the attack had been assigned to al q.
what was it exactly that your hero did, my cleavage sporting airplane sufer?
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2004, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/86 "2004-04-07T22:09:28Z")
Calm down there, **Alaric**. We can all call people by their proper names. This is a civil forum, not the Pit.
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### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/87 "2004-04-07T22:22:00Z")
what can I say–I always liked wonderwoman–I thought she was kind of a low-rent betty page…
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### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/88 "2004-04-08T03:34:08Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> The German Resistance continued to battle Allied troops for three years after Germany surrendered after WWII.
I have just two words for this claim - Bull Shit.
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/89 "2004-04-08T03:39:50Z")
> [@David Simmons](#):
>
> I have just two words for this claim - Bull Shit.
Pssst, I think **wonderwench** might have a little “inside knowledge” of the neo-Nazis, if you get my meaning.
Who knows? Maybe some did lock themselves in an attic for a few years with a M-1 they found laying around and a few thousand cans of creamed corn.
It’d serve them right.
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/90 "2004-04-08T03:40:01Z")
Actually they did.
It’s just that they were not very effective.
Nowhere near the resistance in Iraq.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/91 "2004-04-08T03:42:59Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> SA has been torn between fearing AQ or the U.S. most - weighting AQ more heavily.
I read in the March/April 2004 _Utne Reader_ ([Utne - Cure Ignorance](http://www.utne.com/pub/2004_122/view/11089-1.html)) that al-Qaeda originally was an organization of Asiri Arabs (a minority ethnic group in southern Saudi Arabia) who resent the rule of the Saud family. (You can’t get the whole story at the link I provided, not without paying money to subscribe.)
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### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/92 "2004-04-08T21:21:47Z")
fwiw, John Dean thinks they will be political road kill if they try to stall the report till after the election.
that said, he also referenced the “continuation of government” mechanism, which apparently went into acion on 9/11.
He fears for the republic, and he oughtta’ know…
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### Author:  [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/93 "2004-04-08T21:36:29Z")
The report is not going to be stalled.
It was not creamed corn, it was spinach.
And who are you calling low rent?
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/94 "2004-04-08T21:51:59Z")
Well, “stalled” is a term of art, no? We are already advised that the White House must “vet” the report before it can be released to the teeming. A line by line analysis simpy _must_ be conducted to ensure that no dread threats to national security lurks therein. We are futher advised that they do not expect to be done with this painstaking process until after the election, as this is only April, and a project like this…well, very time consuming, don’t you know.
As to whether this qualifies as “stalling”, that is a matter of perspective. To this eye, it is indeed stalling, since the justification is so patently absurd. As I mentioned previously, the hearings were public for a large part to begin with. Those portions which were conducted outside the immediate glare of public scrutiny are known to many, many people. There is precious little security to be maintained in a situation like this, and everybody knows it.
Therefore, the possibility that some desperately important morsel of national security information might be revealed if the White House should somehow fail to be knowledgeable of the reports contents is slim at best.
That, in my estimation, qualifies as “stalling”. I have little doubt that your mileage most emphaticly varies.
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### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2004, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/95 "2004-04-08T23:13:00Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> The report is not going to be stalled.
>
> It was not creamed corn, it was spinach.
>
> And who are you calling low rent?
I take it, then, that you lend no credence to chairman Kean’s remarks that there is “no guarantee” the public will see the report before november 2?
(hey, c’mon–we’re talking Betty Page here!)
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### Author:  [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2004, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/96 "2004-04-09T03:22:42Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#):
>
> I take it, then, that you lend no credence to chairman Kean’s remarks that there is “no guarantee” the public will see the report before november 2?
>
> (hey, c’mon–we’re talking Betty Page here!)
I could wrap Betty Page around my pony tail.
😃
Given that Kerrey already de-classified the centerpiece of the inquiry - the mythical August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing, there is no political gain for the Bushies to delay the final report. Quite the contrary - they would be playing into the opposition’s hands to do so.
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### Author:  [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/97 "2004-04-09T03:32:28Z")
> [@](#):
>
> By **elucidator** : As I mentioned previously, the hearings were public for a large part to begin with. Those portions which were conducted outside the immediate glare of public scrutiny are known to many, many people. There is precious little security to be maintained in a situation like this, and everybody knows it.
Does it then follow that there is very little new information in this report? Nothing much of interest? Does it then follow that it doesn’t matter _when_ this report is released? If not, why not? Elucidate, please.
I mean, if it’s all old news anyway, who cares when the report is released?
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### Author:  [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2004, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/98 "2004-04-09T03:34:55Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#):
>
> Does it then follow that there is very little new information in this report? Nothing much of interest? Does it then follow that it doesn’t matter _when_ this report is released? If not, why not? Elucidate, please.
>
> I mean, if it’s all old news anyway, who cares when the report is released?
Excellent point.
The hearing were political, not investigational.
Although ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN will not make that distinction.
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/99 "2004-04-09T04:00:09Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> Excellent point.
>
> The hearing were political, not investigational.
>
> Although ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN will not make that distinction.
Right, the “liberal media” conspiracy. Thank the gods for Fox. O\_o
BTW, CNN was bitching about the political nature of the questions earlier.
---
### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-stonewall-the-9-11-report-can-they-hold-the-election/238452/100 "2004-04-09T04:05:48Z")
> [@wonderwench](#):
>
> The hearing were political, not investigational.
[Condoleezza said today](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61252-2004Apr8.html):
> [@](#):
>
> the president recognizes that our work is far from complete. More structural reform will likely be necessary. Our intelligence gathering and analysis have improved dramatically in the last two years, but they must be stronger still.
>
> The president and all of us in his administration welcome new ideas and fresh thinking. We are eager to do whatever it is that will help to protect the American people. And **we look forward to receiving this commission’s recommendations.**
Was she lying under oath, or is she simply unaware that the hearing are political, not investigational?
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