WASHINGTON, May 18 — The ferocity of the White House counterattack this week, when confronted by criticism that President Bush and his top advisers knew more than the public about hijacking threats before Sept. 11, is a sure sign that they recognize the political danger should Democrats press the issue through the coming election campaign.

Mr. Bush's political team appeared to sense that taking the question to the voters might backfire on the Democrats, with the president, and by implication his party, suffering no lasting political damage from the disclosures of the past week.

The central question is where the public will place responsibility if excessive information-hoarding within the intelligence and law enforcement communities left the nation's guard down as Al Qaeda terrorists trained and prepared for their attack. In part, the answer will depend on whether any inquiry is carried out by a divided and partisan Congress or by an independent commission, and on whether any newly discovered information leaks out bit by bit or is kept secret until after the election.

Whatever the political fallout, it seems inevitable that the public will demand that its curiosity be assuaged and that those in Congress who want to overhaul the intelligence apparatus will demand the facts.

There are increasing calls for a detailed look at whether the government could have connected the dots of the Sept. 11 plot, at least enough to sound a specific alarm relating to aviation security and to mount a manhunt for Al Qaeda operatives in the country, some of whom had been training in flight schools.

Although there are inevitable partisan overtones to any such question, the calls to have the investigation are coming from the political center.

"I think this is a serious matter," said Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic foreign policy stalwart in the House of Representatives, who is now director of the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center.

"You are sitting there as president getting information from the C.I.A. that there are members of Al Qaeda discussing hijacking of American airliners," Mr. Hamilton said, "and you've got information in the F.B.I. about the need to look for Middle Eastern men training at U.S. flight schools. That is a serious matter and I don't care what other information is coming across your desk, that calls for action."

J. Stapleton Roy, who was the State Department's intelligence chief and a former ambassador to Indonesia and China, said organizational solutions were "too simplistic."

"There has to be a management solution," Mr. Roy said, "and that may require a lot of will, though I don't see any lack of will on the part of this administration." Mr. Roy, a Bush family friend, was a career Foreign Service officer under presidents of both parties.

Mr. Hamilton is concerned that Congress will be hard-pressed to organize an inquiry, hold hearings and issue a report before the campaign season intrudes after Labor Day. Some Republican strategists suggested that Congress organize an independent investigating committee whose conclusions would be reported only after the fall elections so as to disconnect them from politics.

That might not be satisfactory to Democrats who have suffered months of taunts by Republican conservatives, who disparaged Democratic efforts to fight terrorism in the Clinton era as weak and indecisive.

"I don't think we know at this point who bears responsibility," Mr. Hamilton said, "and I do not think that should be the focus. But I think there is a serious systemic problem in the government that does need to be examined, not with the idea of hanging someone but with the idea of understanding what happened and coming up with proposals to correct it."

The furor, expressed in the evocative questions about "what the president knew and when he knew it," spread indignation among some families of Sept. 11 victims and made it almost certain that a full Congressional inquiry, as called for by Democrats and Republicans, would soon get under way.

Mr. Bush denounced the culture of Washington with its constant "second-guessing" — as he often did during the rough patches of his presidential campaign. The White House struck back sharply at Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton when she joined those questioning the nation's preparedness before Sept. 11. By implication, the message was that any weakness in intelligence was tolerated, if not fostered, during President Bill Clinton's eight years in office.

The intensity of interest surrounding the new disclosures underscored how much Americans remain seized by the Sept. 11 attacks. The continuing fighting in Afghanistan, for the moment, was overshadowed by the question of whether Mr. Bush and the intelligence community were at a sufficient level of alert last summer, when the president was taking a long vacation in his first year in office.

At a more detailed level, specialists were asking why the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency were unable to integrate critical intelligence leads. In the public mind, there may be other worries: Do the same problems continue today? Is there a continuing danger of another devastating attack? Has anybody caulked over the cracks between the agencies so that no more crucial intelligence can slip through them?

Many in Congress said their need for investigation was no different from the desire a half-century ago to know how the United States was surprised at Pearl Harbor, which has repeatedly been cited as the closest thing to Sept. 11 the nation has experienced. There were questions of accountability then as there are today.

The intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor, according to independent examinations in 1944 and 1945, was the hoarding of intelligence and decentralization of intelligence agencies. There were also individual acts of negligence. One occurred when the Pacific Fleet intelligence chief, Rear Adm. Edwin T. Layton, declined to pass along crucial intercepts of Japanese diplomatic messages.

Only after the war was the C.I.A. created in an effort to unify intelligence gathering, just as the Defense Department was being reshaped into a unified military structure.

In its final report, the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, whose 10 members were drawn from the House and Senate, stated, "History will properly place responsibility for Pearl Harbor upon the military clique dominating the people of Japan at the time." That was in 1945, four years after the event and weeks after Japan's surrender.

The committee said its conclusions were meant "not to detract from this responsibility but to record for posterity the facts of the disaster. In another sense we seek to find lessons and to avoid pitfalls in the future to evolve constructive suggestions for the protection of our national security, and to determine whether there were failures in our own military and naval establishments which in any measure may have contributed to the extent and intensity of the disaster."

Even if the historical analogy reflects how institutional change comes about, it may not have much political potency, just as Pearl Harbor did not undermine Franklin D. Roosevelt's public standing.

A Republican pollster, Robert Teeter, said that if blame were assigned for lapses in detecting the Sept. 11 plots, it would be assigned below the president's pay grade.

"I think there is going to be an investigation of our intelligence agencies," Mr. Teeter said. "Up to now, Congress has not had the stomach to get into it, but I think this will make them find their voice."

At the same time, Mr. Teeter said, "I think the country made up its mind months ago that this president has done a very good job in handling this issue."

Why, he asked, didn't the administration "level with the people" about all the information it had at the time of the attacks? "These questions go to the issue of candor and competence," he said, "and there is that awkward pause" between information received by the administration and disclosure to the public that works against Mr. Bush's "earnestness."

The ferocity of the White House counterattack this week, when confronted by criticism that President Bush and his top advisers knew more than the public about hijacking threats before Sept. 11, is a sure sign that they recognize the political danger should Democrats press the issue through the coming election campaign.

You can't "press" an issue that has no facts behind it. The public knows that Bush would not have allowed this to happen if he could have prevented it. This dog WILL NOT hunt (just like the other 23 "scandals" since Enron-Gate.

On to the next dog please.

PS: note how everything they try to pin on Bush, it appears that the StainMaker (Disgraced, Impeached, alleged Serial Rapist Bubba J. Klintoon-- "ol' x42") has already done it, only much worse.

I believe that CNN(gag), which I stumbled on this morn(double gag!) did a small portion of BUBBA's l995 terrorist warning...of course when they interviewed the RAPIST he slime his way out by saying that the targets were'nt specific(DUH) (even though the threats were directly mentioned in l995 that the WH and Pentagon were prime targets, go figure!)and as usual the reporter didn't take him to task with follow ups. SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?!! That's why I hate those EXCREMENT RATS!! At all cost they will protect the RAPIST, THE BEAST and their spawn from HELL, HOWDY DOODY's look alike!

With this attack on Bush and Carter's trip to Cuba, we have seen the official opening of the Democrat's election campaign. It's all carefully orchestrated. Expect a barrage of simiilar attacks on Bush from now on.

BTW, Peter Jennings was in my hometown yesterday, appeared on afternoon talk show, and brought along our leftist governor, Gary Locke. Jennings said he was "consulting the governor to see how to help ." How blatant can you get? He's traveling the country picking up DNC pointers. (He also reiterated his 9/11 doozy, "Let Us Roll." No contractions for ABC's effete DNC puppet, who is even less personable in informal talkshow format than on nightly news.)

Anyway, the DemonRats are piling up ammo, real or imaginary, locking and loading, and will be gunning for W nonstop from now on.

And even here it's the DEMOCRATS who are throwing marbles under the feet of our LEO's by screaming "racial profiling" every time they try to arrest someone. Do they really think the public doesn't notice this?

The evil donkey is trapped like a rat. He knows full well that in two weeks the curtain comes crashing down on Memorial Day, the Summer starts and the lemmings' mind's get completely shutoff. They won't give a shiite about politics for another three months. Then the fun starts, we'll see the 1st anniversary of 9/11 and with all that will come out about clinocchio not going after UBL maybe dash hole will jump off mount RUSHmore!

The nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center, LOL

You beat me to it. Here is some of their "non-partisan" blather they are sponsoring:

Litigating for Gender Equality, 1970 - 2000

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Litigating in the 1970s

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who will speak about litigating for gender equality in the 1970s, won five of the six cases she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court during that decade. She had become a Justice of the court by the time it ordered the Virginia Military Institute to admit women in 1996. The decision she wrote in the case created a heightened constitutional standard for gender equality in the United States.

Marcia Greenberger
Litigating in the 1980s

Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, created the Center in part to fight for equal educational opportunity for women. NWLC was one of the advocacy groups active in the VMI case.

Michael Maurer
Litigating in the 1990s

Michael Maurer, Deputy Chief of the Educational Opportunities Section of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, represented the government in the final stages of the litigation.

I can't begin to imagine for even one second that true Americans are fooled by these flaming liberals and their laughable accusations. However, I am aware that true Americans are now a minority in this country, and therefore I am deeply concerned by these baseless left-wing diatribes. For more info on this topic, I would direct y'all to the thread on the Democrat Congress leaders who are right now frothing at the mouth against our great President and his "intelligence failure" (said the pot to the kettle) when they themselves are responsible for slashing the intelligence budget. Read up on these half-brained lunatics. Know your enemy!

The New York Times is a dishonest Liberal rag.

Clinton-apologist NYT is the only reason these grifters remain on the political landscape.

You freaking Socialist media bastards have no idea what conservatives will do to you.

BOYCOTT THE NEW YORK TIMES

BOYCOTT THE NYT ADVERTISERS

Get organized, get ready. I smell a kill.

PS: note how everything they try to pin on Bush, it appears that the StainMaker (Disgraced, Impeached, alleged Serial Rapist Bubba J. Klintoon-- "ol' x42") has already done it, only much worse.

Clinton lowered the bar right down to the ground, didn't he?

But when it was Clinton's bar, the NYT painted it with pretty hues, tied brightly colored ribbons to it, and expected us to believe that the politicians wallowing in the dirt next to that bar were actually executing an intricate maypole dance. For the children of Perpendicular World.

They still can't stop projecting Clinton motives onto the present administration either:

The ferocity of the White House counterattack this week, when confronted by criticism that President Bush and his top advisers knew more than the public about hijacking threats before Sept. 11, is a sure sign that they recognize the political danger should Democrats press the issue through the coming election campaign.

Yeah, right. It can't be because they're outraged by the charges, it HAS to be about a midterm election. (Just like it is for the Dems, whoise motive are NOT given the same scrutiny).

And that ludicrous opening paragraph is contradicted in the very next one:

Mr. Bush's political team appeared to sense that taking the question to the voters might backfire on the Democrats, with the president, and by implication his party, suffering no lasting political damage from the disclosures of the past week.

Um, 'scuse me, it was the Democrats who took the question to the voters. If it backfires on them, they have only themselves to blame.

Although desperately trying to be "fair and balanced", there's scarcely one sentence in this NY Slimes article that's not biased, twisted, skewed, distorted, unhistorical, propagandist, condescending, hateful, treasonous, unpatriotic, leftist or a damned outright lie.

What words have I left out?

Leni

I agree completely.. I have talked with a lot of people this week and I have not found ONE that believes that President Bush would have disregarded warnings that could have averted 9-11. NOT ONE.

The Democrat Party has lost its way and is desparate for any issue, and Bush is denying them the crevice. I expect we'll be back to scaring old people with SocSec disaster before much longer-- it's the "old reliable" they can pull out time and time again. I HATE THE DEMOCRATS.

The Bush Administration should say that of course there was a failure of intelligence and a failure of imagination of what Bin Laden would do. Those failing include the administration, the Congress, the media, the FBI, CIA and other intelligence sources.

The Bush Administration should announce their own independent commission to investigate the US's entire history of reaction to Bin Laden. The Bush Administration should also immediately announce some anti-terrorist steps, one arming pilots and crews of airlines, two call for CCW laws in all 50 States and cities and encourage citizen involvement in watching out for unusual activities, three airport screenings will be of suspicious characters not random, four Moslem-Americans will be called upon to expose the extremists elements hiding among them... These suggestions are just a start and will be sure to drive the 'RATs crazy. They should watch out what they wish for, they may get it.

Will the Bushwimps do this? No. They will continue to act defensively and guilty. The Stupid Party rides again.

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