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ARRRRGH. DARN YOU, CONGRESSMAN WELDON (NRO blogger loses grip...as heard on Rush!)
National Review Online ^ | 8/16/05 | Jim Geraghty

Posted on 08/16/2005 10:28:31 AM PDT by spycatcher

Just heard from a guy I trust that the Pentagon will be releasing information regarding Able Danger in the not too distant future. The short version: Don't expect any bombshells.

Thank you, Congressman Weldon, for getting just enough of this story right (the existence of Able Danger and its mission) to get folks like myself and lot of others to take you seriously. Those others weren't just bloggers, by the way - I'm talking about the New York Times, the AP, the Bergen Record...

And thanks a [really bad word] heap for getting more than enough wrong that we look like idiots for trusting you.

You know, like that rather key element that Able Danger had picked out four of the 9/11 hijackers and recommended they be picked up by the FBI. I can see how you could mix up that pesky little detail.

Thank you for making all of these stunning allegations without any supporting evidence. Thank you for not having any documents, memos, or anything beyond allegations from an anonymous former defense intelligence guy who is unwilling to come forward and speak on the record.

Thanks for using us to goose your book sales this month.

Thank you for making the 9/11 Commission, a group that seemed to have done a sloppy, incomplete job, look absolutely on the ball and well-organized and coherent in comparison. (In retrospect, should the Commission have mentioned Able Danger? Sure. They were a small part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts before 9/11. But if they never found anything that tied into the attacks, then the Commission is right, they weren't all that signficant in the big picture. They warranted a paragraph or two.)

If Weldon generates some actual evidence, or if any of the 11 guys in Able Danger come forward and make a persuasive case that "yes, we did spot four hijackers in 2000", then I'll backtrack on all of this. But right now, I doubt that we will ever hear from any of them.

The only silver lining to this mess? I can gloat to Mary Mapes about how to burn a source that leads you astray.

UPDATE: I'm told that Tony Snow recently announced that one of the Able Danger team members will be doing an interview with Catherine Herridge today, and that he (Tony) has a radio interview with the gentleman scheduled for tomorrow. AJ Strata points to a article indicating that Weldon told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity, "I can guarantee you that you will be able to have one on your show. You might want to go with your TV show with this, because it will be a major story. And you can interview him directly."

We will see. As TKS reader Ted put it:

On something as huge as this, I found it hard it hard to believe that the Able Danger guys would have stayed quiet for four years. It just seems to me that the psychological and emotional pressure on them would have driven someone public a long time ago - "We knew we had those SOB's nailed, the dumb lawyers shut us down, and then we watched 9/11 on TV just like everyone else. Do you have any idea what it's like to think you might have that on your conscience? Now it's being swept under the rug by a bunch of butt-covering bureaucrats. This is a whitewash!" If eleven people supposedly were in the loop, odds are one of them would've surfaced a long time ago.

But then, you could look at Colleen Rowley, the FBI agent in Minneapolis, and agree "Yeah, see what happens to whistleblowers."

So who knows.



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: atta; crybaby; geraghty; headlesschicken; hypocrite; nro; nutty; scaredlittlegirl; unhinged; wacky; weldon
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Did anyone notice the glaring hypocritical blind spot here on the Kerry Spot?

This guy cannot say for sure this is a non-story, yet he's running around like a headless chicken spouting nonsense about people who know for a fact that there's a story here to some extent and want an investigation into the details!

What a moroon!

1 posted on 08/16/2005 10:28:34 AM PDT by spycatcher
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To: spycatcher

Weldon has a book coming out on Able Danger and I suspect he hyped the story to sell his book.


2 posted on 08/16/2005 10:29:36 AM PDT by Phantom Lord (Fall on to your knees for the Phantom Lord)
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To: spycatcher
Just heard from a guy I trust...

That's nice. Why should we?

3 posted on 08/16/2005 10:29:56 AM PDT by mewzilla (Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. John Adams)
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To: spycatcher
This writer clearly has no clue as to how Able Danger worked, and how powerful its huge computer programs are. To get a clue, and understand why this writer is a fool, click below.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "The 9/11 9/11 Commission" (Not a Misprint)

4 posted on 08/16/2005 10:31:51 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob (Will President Bush's SECOND appointment obey the Constitution? I give 95-5 odds on yes.)
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To: spycatcher

Gosh, I hope he's wrong. If he is, I'll feel like Charlie Brown after Lucy pulls the football away for the umpteenth time.


5 posted on 08/16/2005 10:32:36 AM PDT by JewishRighter
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To: Phantom Lord

So Weldon pulled a Rather, eh?


6 posted on 08/16/2005 10:32:41 AM PDT by dmz
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To: spycatcher
On something as huge as this, I found it hard it hard to believe that the Able Danger guys would have stayed quiet for four years.

Yeah, it's not like the turf defenders in government pound on whistleblowers like cheap cutlets or anything like that.

7 posted on 08/16/2005 10:34:22 AM PDT by dirtboy (Drool overflowed my buffer...)
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To: spycatcher

This is seems to be the common refrain over at NRO, with the possible exception of Andy McCarthy.


8 posted on 08/16/2005 10:34:22 AM PDT by Cosmo (Liberalism is for girls)
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To: spycatcher

This is all going to go down the memory hole just like Atta/Prauge and Janya Davis/OKC, the political class won't dare be exposed.


9 posted on 08/16/2005 10:34:48 AM PDT by NeoCaveman (The constitution is not in exile, it's in a nice safe deposit box in the Cayman Islands - Lileks)
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To: spycatcher
Here is the link to the report from Tony Snow's show.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1464369/posts

10 posted on 08/16/2005 10:35:24 AM PDT by mware (Trollhunter of Note)
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To: dmz

did you read the entire article?

you must have missed:

UPDATE: I'm told that Tony Snow recently announced that one of the Able Danger team members will be doing an interview with Catherine Herridge today, and that he (Tony) has a radio interview with the gentleman scheduled for tomorrow. AJ Strata points to a article indicating that Weldon told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity, "I can guarantee you that you will be able to have one on your show. You might want to go with your TV show with this, because it will be a major story. And you can interview him directly."


11 posted on 08/16/2005 10:35:53 AM PDT by Stellar Dendrite (The presence of "peace" is the absence of opposition to socialism -- Marx)
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To: Phantom Lord

Weldon's book is irrelevant to the independent facts at hand and the Commission's strange shifting incomplete explanations. It's really just a backhanded smear of Weldon.


12 posted on 08/16/2005 10:36:03 AM PDT by spycatcher
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To: spycatcher

CYA Geraghty


13 posted on 08/16/2005 10:37:05 AM PDT by mict42
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To: spycatcher

So Rummy is dumping cold water on the Able Danger story? Doesn't want his shop to get any of the blame for it? As the man says, we shall see.


14 posted on 08/16/2005 10:37:31 AM PDT by popdonnelly
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To: spycatcher

"that Able Danger had picked out four of the 9/11 hijackers and recommended they be picked up by the FBI."

It was an open source data mining operation. Without a massive amount of following up and infiltration it could never have led to a $5.00 a week drug dealing operation, let alone an AQ cell.



15 posted on 08/16/2005 10:38:49 AM PDT by happinesswithoutpeace (You are receiving this broadcast as a dream)
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To: dmz

I would'nt go that far.

We have yet to find out what and why Sandy Berger did his unusual antics to take documents. And we have never heard Jame Gorelick on the stand. 2 things that need to be cleared up imo.


16 posted on 08/16/2005 10:39:47 AM PDT by Shaka
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To: dmz

No, it's just some NRO blogger with an ax to grind who's smearing Weldon prematurely for supposedly pulling a Dan Rather.

And yes, Andy McCarthy is an oasis of sanity on NRO now. If he wasn't posting there I'd wonder if Jamie Gorelick had taken over editorial duties.


17 posted on 08/16/2005 10:40:50 AM PDT by spycatcher
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To: Shaka

If there is nothing to this story then why is clinton trying to preempt it by issuing a statement that he woudl have gotten OBL


18 posted on 08/16/2005 10:41:34 AM PDT by Stellar Dendrite (The presence of "peace" is the absence of opposition to socialism -- Marx)
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To: spycatcher

"No, it's just some NRO blogger with an ax to grind who's smearing Weldon prematurely for supposedly pulling a Dan Rather. "


If this story snowballs and turns into a hugh event, these NRO naysayers will look like idiots...and we will remember their efforts.


19 posted on 08/16/2005 10:43:01 AM PDT by Stellar Dendrite (The presence of "peace" is the absence of opposition to socialism -- Marx)
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To: Stellar Dendrite

I read that part also, and the future tense in that update means that no confirmation yet exists.

I'll be the first to eat my words, though. I'm wrong so much of the time, it's not even painful anymore.


20 posted on 08/16/2005 10:43:37 AM PDT by dmz
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