Senator Bob Graham says that this is an "overblown story" but this won't prevent Dan Rather & company from jumping all over it from the political angle.
The Cost of Life (Clinton/Gore Sellout of Security for Campaign Contributions) **FR EXCLUSIVE** #3 Thread Two | 9/23/01 | Jon Loose and Connie Hair
Victoria Cummock and CIA Director John Deutch were resolute in their opposition to the “softball” report. Gore was given no choice but to pull back the report. Reinstalled were sensible new procedures that would cost the airlines millions of dollars.
· Conduct airport vulnerability assessments and develop action plans
· Require criminal background checks and FBI fingerprint checks for all screeners, and all airport and airline employees with access to secure areas
· Deploy existing technology
· Signifi cantly expand the use of bomb-sniffing dogs
· Complement technology with automated passenger profiling
· Certify screening companies and improve screener performance
· Aggressively test existing security systems
· Use the Customs Service to enhance security
· Give properly cleared airline and airport security personnel access to the classified information they need to know
· Begin implementation of full bag-passenger match
· Providing more compassionate and effective assistance to families of victims
· Improve passenger manifests
· Significantly increase the number of FBI agents assigned to counter-terrorism investigations, to improve intelligence, and to crisis response
· Provide anti-terrorism assistance in the form of airport security training to countries where there are airports served by airlines flying to the US
The security measures were in the final recommendation report. However, the implementation timetable was nowhere to be found.
In February of 1997, Victoria Cummock called the report “toothless.” She informed Gore that unless specific implementation dates were added in the report she would file a dissent, because the airline industry would not have to do anything until such measures were mandated.
On February 12, 1997, an open meeting was held on the commission’s final report. Gore made a point to inform Ms. Cummock that he would leave room for her dissent to the final report. NBC Dateline caught these comments on videotape. Also on videotape was Mr. Gore presenting the final report to President Clinton minutes later and pronouncing that the report had unanimous consent. But it didn’t.
This was reposted courtesy of backhoe, today.
BS -- Congress was briefed on the same material the very day after Bush was.
Thursdays, ya see, are big ratings days. Ratings surveys are conducted on a Friday-thru-Thursday week, and Thursday is when you want your big guns firing. That's why there's always a huge battle for Thursday Evening Primetime.
So, the news media puts out the accusations on a Thursday, and by Friday they allow the truth to drizzle out - just when no one's paying attention. The media KNEW that Congress got the same briefing the Prez did, or at least SOME knew. But the media wanted its role in another "DNC 24-Hour News Cycle Miracle," and played along.
I noticed how quickly this story withered on the vine on CNN after it was pointed out on-air that the intel committees all had the same info as the Prez - AND the CNN polls showed 70% of the Amurrican Pipple thought this was pure politics. Paula Zahn then said, "I'm sure we'll be seeing some 'recalibration' of the way the Democrats are handling this story. We have before when our polls come out..."
This one's over, folks, for now...
Michael