But a Parliament or Congressional session is by it’s nature partisan. This is expressly supposed **not ** to be. Clapping is absurd, and just lends a circus atmosphere to the whole thing. This isn’t American Idol.
My parliament is not the UK parliament. I’m Irish we have our own parliament, constitution, country, flag, anthem, laws etc. Ya know a different country 
Same difference. You both live on an island and talk funny.
I’ll give you that 
The equivalent here would be a Parliamentary Committee. These are serious affairs, designed to give the subject a rigorous and impartial grilling (it is widely thought that the pressure of one was too much for David Kelly). None of the nonsense I am watching on CNN would be tolerated for a second.
What? This is a September 11th hearing.
What, this is merely an Historical document?
About the clapping –
This was never intended a serious affair – this commission from the beginning was destined to be a tool for partisan politicians to lay blame and cast insults at their opposing party. The clapping seems very natural considering the true nature of this sham commission. I am surprised there hasn’t been more of it. I am walking away from today’s testimony with absolutley no addition to my knowledge of what our government was doing in the past two decades in regard to terrorism. Everybody on both sides of the table in this commission has their own purely political agenda. This is a sad, sad, example of how partisan politics takes presidence over our nation’s general welfare. This commission should never have taken place – what an absolute waste.
Uhm…OK…so the worst attack on civilians in American history happens, people want answers, and Bush shrugs and says, “Nah, there’s no need for a bipartisan commission, it’ll probably turn into some political circus.” You’d be OK with that? What sort of investigation WOULD have made you happy? What sort of pure, untainted people would you have put on the committee?
I learned a few things about the structural problems and taboos that contributed to not being able to detect the attack, although having worked in a government agency she was absolutely right–the amounts of threats you get from the world are impossible to investigate fully.
As for the clapping, those are mostly the 9/11 families. I don’t think non-Americans would understand the deference and respect those people get here, especially in DC and NY. You do NOT tell them to knock it off unless you’re the Chairman.
Where did I say it was or wasn’t? I was talking about the frankly absurd notion that the testimony would be concentrated on Iraq rather than September 11th and the period beforehand.
As for the “Bin Laden determined to attack inside U.S.” memo or whatever, all we’ve heard is the title. And said title, from the point of view of preventing a specific attack, is rather vague. So is the notion of “preparing for a hijacking” (paraphrased.)
Where inside the US? What kind of attack? When? Who? What types of targets? What sort of hijacking? What flights? Out of which airport? With what purpose?
We know the answers now, but I’d like to read the damn memo first before I decide anything.
No congressional investigation would make me happy. The only reason Bush called for the commission was for political reasons so that goes to my point. Bush isn’t looking to this commission for answers – his administration has done its own investigation – so have all the other agencies involved in national security in one way or another. When this commission presents its results it will offer no new advice to any government agency. All the steps it will call for will have already been called for by others. Besides the point that the only part of the commission’s report that will be payed attention to will be the part that asseses blame on the various presidential administrations.
I’ve known about these problems for years – Condi Rice herself has been talking about these same problems for two years now – so have countless other government officials, reporters, analysts, etc. She said nothing today that the world hasn’t known for years now.
The only reason that clapping was tolerated was because of the presence of the families of 9/11 victims.
I totally disagree that this is a “sham” commission. I agree that some of the public testimony with the high profile people like Clarke and Rice has been politicized on both sides. But by all reports, in general the commission has worked pretty darn well together. Even the request for Rice to appear publicly was made unanimously by all of the members.
This isn’t a congressional investigation. It’s an independent commission and all of it’s members are former congressmen/women and governors.
Bush called for the commission? Bush fought it tooth and nail for a long time.
I doubt very much that you already know everything that the commission is hearing since they have classified doucuments and closed door hearings that you have no access to and they have interviewed 1000 people.
It wasn’t my fault. Tenet knew stuff, and talked to the Prez all the time. Clarke knew stuff and talked to me. I knew what was going on. It was Clarke’s responsibility to coordinate the efforts. Well, Clarke and Tenet. Of course I was aware what was going on. The threat wasn’t specific. Actually it was specific, it was specifically about threats overseas. And it was a historical background paper that didn’t discuss any current threat at all. The Prez asked for the paper, because he already knew what was going on. It was titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States”, which is entirely consistent with everything I just said. I did my job. I didn’t do anything. That was my job.
Frankly, I lost what little respect I had for Condi the moment she tossed out the threadworn “the terrorists attacked us for who we are” glurge. Either she’s a complete idiot who doesn’t know about the motivations of Osama bin Laden regarding American bases in Saudi, or she thinks we’re too stupid to know.
And I’m not sure, but didn’t she essentially say, “Yes, we received intelligence indicating an imminent plot to hijack airplanes back in August 2001, so we issued warnings to the airlines, because there wasn’t time to do anything else”? Because it prompted me to ask why didn’t the Administration do something more substantial, like sticking Air Marshalls on some flights or increasing scrutiny at airport security checkpoints?
Must have been a pretty in depth investigation, considering that as of 2002 Rice still didn’t know anything about the discussions going on prior to 9/11 about airplanes as bombs.
Yes, I’d like to see the memo too, lots of people would, but up until today even the title has been kept from us.
Rice kept coming back again and again to the “structural deficiencies” that she argued prevented anyone connecting the dots on pilot training, airplane plots, and attacks inside the US. She seemed well aware of these deficits in the early months of 01, yet claims that “shaking the tree” would have been an ineffective strategy in ferreting out the information. But with an admittedly innefficient intelligence set up, whose job was it to see that the important issues got the attention they deserved, the low level employees, or the people in charge? Rice’s answer appears to be “no one.”
I’ve been following this for awhile now since I keep the t.v. on CNN during the day. That hardly makes me an expert but I think it makes me more aware than the general public (not including SDMB’ers, of course)
It has all been like this, almost from the very beginning. I had the same suspicions for awhile now and today it got completely locked-down confirmed. This commission is a sham, a complete and total sham and is nothing more than political grandstanding by both parties. There is no “independent” in independent. There is no bipartisan in “bipartisan”. The whole process has become hopelessly compromised by politics and a big part of that is the election year politicing going on. There is no interest in truth, only interest in the truth’s that support your political parties campaign claims. Bastards the lot of them.
The ones I feel the worst for, and at the same time am disgusted by, are the families there. They are there, they are watching this circus and even applauding. They are being used and the deaths of their families are not enough for them to stop their own involvement in this joke and demand better of both sides. They sit there like lemings and applaud when someone makes a partisan shot across the bow? Please.
Xtisme nailed it perfectly.
MeanJoe
Humpty:
I disagree.
I’ve learned lots from the testimony that I didn’t know before, especially from Clarke’s statements and the debate they’ve created. For example, I learned the administration didn’t increase spending on counter-terrorism prior to 9/11, despite it’s claims to the contrary. Today, I learned the Bush’s August 6 briefing was entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” (No wonder the administration wants to keep its contents secret!)
In addition, the media coverage has brought these issues to the attention to a much larger audience. That’s also a good thing.
Perhaps not. But it will provide important information to the American public. As I said, I’ve learned a lot.