Commission Punks:
So, like, when you hear the words "bipartisan" and "unanimous" in reference to the 9/11 Commission report, are you just ready to beat your head against the wall until you fall into the sweet sleep of concussion? Are you ready to try to gnaw off your own arm, held, as you are, in the teeth of a bear trap of logical fallacy? 'Cause, like, when you read articles like this one, which discusses how the commission avoided making any judgements about the "wisdom" of invading Iraq in order to have a "unanimous" report, you know what the real truth is: the Democrats on the committee punked out - they rolled over and let the Republicans have their way with them. Good prison punks always know that most of the time it's best to just bite the pillow and hope all the anal fucking is over quickly. If you fight, you might end up getting beaten and fucked. So just get fucked and deal with the sore rectum rather than the broken bones.
But that mystical, magical report appeared out of the blue, seemingly without extensive vetting from the White House, which is odd, since, back in April, the White House promised to vet the report "line by line," potentially delaying the release of the report until after the election. Now, that report is over 500 pages long. One might imagine that a "line by line" vetting would take some time, one might imagine that in order for the vetting to go that fast that the White House might have read a draft (perhaps), or one might imagine that in the name of "bipartisan unanimity" the report was scrubbed by its own commission members beforehand. The Rude Pundit is no "journalist," but isn't this at least a semi-valid issue - when did the vetting happen and how?
However, let us deal with the substance, which can be boiled down to this: Clinton did some good, but not enough, but he didn't "wag the dog." Bush is a shit-throwing chimp who, with his cabinet, ignored repeated warnings and fucked up the nation. (Ironically, Bush "read" the report on a trip to the ranch this weekend.) Congress abdicated its role as overseer of the White House. The media's a bunch of bullshit-mongers. Richard Clarke was right. There's no truth to Iraq/al-Qaeda; there's no truth to Atta in Prague. (In fact, we can now use the word "lie" whenever we refer to Bush, Cheney, or anyone making statements about "knowing" that Iraq was getting blown by al-Qaeda or that Mohammed Atta likes black light puppet shows.) And how the "immediate response" to 9/11 was to figure out how to bomb the living shit out of Iraq.
But mostly, sadly, all we truly understand from the 9/11 Commission report is just how cowed Democrats on the panel were by the Republicans, how they huddled to themselves in a corner while the Republicans laughed and tossed lit cigar butts at them, how, if they threatened a minority report, the Republicans would make the Democrats run around the Mall with their pants around their ankles. Imagine what would have happened if Gore had been president. Imagine that report. Imagine, gut-churningly, how the Democrats would have gone along to be as vicious as possible to Gore so that they looked "strong." But, ahh, a different time, a different time.
Strangely, one might have thought the job of the commission was to tell the truth. One might have thought that responsible citizens would have told that truth no matter who it ruined, no matter who it discredited, no matter which administration it brought down.
