Getting Ready for the Convention
I've had a hectic couple of weeks (with a few more on the way, thanks to my little Palm project), but wanted to post a couple things to keep the place fresh. I'm hoping to see a bit of the convention, and am very interested to see Barrack Obama tonight. I'm disheartened by the lack of coverage on the major (non-cable) networks, and I'm not the only one--Jim Lehrer has some words:

The political conventions are among the few "shared" national political events left. The others are the debates. Journalism organizations that say the conventions are not important are essentially saying the election of a president is not important. We are not in the business of making events, only in covering them.

The Pew results say it all. This is one of the most important presidential elections we've had in a long time. Important issues with long-term implications are on the table to be resolved. The United States of America is the most powerful nation in the world. All Americans should be involved in the debate over how we exercise our enormous power. The vehicle to do that is the presidential election.

Is there anything going on that is more important than that?

That Pew Research Center survey from back in March offers the following:

More than six-in-ten Americans (63%) think it really matters more who wins the 2004 presidential election this year, compared with 45% who expressed that view in June 2000. The increase is most notable among Democrats (68%, up from 46% in 2000), but growing numbers of Republicans and independents also believe it really matters who wins in the fall (Republicans up 16%, independents 15%).


I'd say that number has only increased during this summer, what with Iraq turmoil and bipartisan commissions making reports. Speaking of which, Joe Conason over at Slate has some interesting commentary about the non-partison blame toward Presidents Clinton and Bush doled out by the bipartisan 9/11 commission. True, the Clinton administratration did not effectively dismantle the Al Queda network--but at least they paid attention to it

While the report describes repeated chances to thwart the 9/11 plot, its authors were deeply reluctant to say that it could have been stopped. But the report adds a significant new detail to the tale of the famous briefing that the president received while on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

What Bush and his national security advisor Condoleezza Rice dismissively termed a "historical document" -- before its stunning contents were declassified -- was dispatched to Texas with far more urgent intentions. So testified the two CIA analysts who authored it. The two analysts -- one of whom is identified in the report's voluminous footnotes only as "Barbara S." -- told the commission bluntly that they regarded the PDB as "an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a Bin Ladin attack in the United States remained both current and serious." While the Aug. 6 PDB was the 36th in a series dealing with al-Qaida or bin Laden, it was the first one given to the president in 2001 that was "devoted to the possibility of an attack in the United States."

Unfortunately, the alarmed analysts were unable to pinpoint the time, date, place or method by which bin Laden's minions would wreak bloody havoc on us. Without such specific data, the president responded complacently to their warning. The commission's report says that he never discussed the threat of a domestic attack with any of his aides, including the attorney general -- although the PDB highlighted the news that the FBI was then conducting "approximately 70 full field operations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related."

The report records what President Bush told the commission about the Aug. 6 PDB during his closed interview, without additional comment. Perhaps none is required:

"He ... remembered thinking that it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way ... He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened."