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RUSH: We will start with the Iraq surrender group, big press conference today chaired by Lee Hamilton and James Baker. I think one of the best ways to share with you my thoughts on this is to read to you an e-mail I got from an Air Force friend of mine, a veteran in Iraq watching this this morning. "Hey, Rush, I'm climbing out of my skin here, watching the Iraq surrender group unfold on TV, but they're missing the point. Iraq is not the problem. The hatred our enemy has for us, that's the problem. Iraq is only a...

In the frenzied final week of the Iraq Study Group's deliberations, co-chairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton took time out to pose for a photo spread for a fashion magazine, Men's Vogue. This might seem a dubious decision given the gravity of the moment and their self-appointed roles as the nation's saviors. The "wise men" who counseled Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam and the members of the Kissinger Commission who tried to reshape Ronald Reagan's Central American policies did not sit for Annie Leibovitz in the middle of their endeavors. Nor did they hire a mega-public relations firm to sell their...

James Baker's "Iraq Study Group" seems to have been cast on the same basis as Liza Minnelli's last wedding. A stellar lineup: Donna Summer, Mickey Rooney, the Doobie Brothers, Gina Lollobrigida, Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Jill St. John. That's Liza's wedding, not the Baker Commission. But at both gatherings everyone who was anyone was there, no matter how long ago it was they were anyone. So the fabulous Baker boy was accompanied by Clinton officials Leon Panetta and Bill Perry, Clinton golfing buddy Vernon Jordan, Clinton's fellow sex fiend Chuck Robb, the quintessential ''moderate'' Republican...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, voiced confidence Saturday that the United States would not abandon its mission in this violence-racked country amid a post-election re-evaluation of Iraq strategy. "The weeks and months ahead will require courage and determination," Casey said at a Veterans Day naturalization ceremony for 75 U.S. troops at Baghdad's Camp Victory. "But succeed we will." His comments were among his first public statements since the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last week. Washington political insiders have speculated that Casey and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who was also...

With 9/11 Film, Kean Finds Tough Critic in Hamilton By Dana Milbank Tuesday, September 12, 2006; A02 There have been few political love stories as beautiful as that of Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the former chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 commission. "I have never worked with anybody I've come to respect more than Lee Hamilton," Republican Kean said at a Sept. 11 fifth-anniversary joint performance with Hamilton yesterday. "He is one of the preeminent public servants of our day, bar none," came Democrat Hamilton's well-worn reply. So it packed even more punch when Hamilton, at the National...

Lee Hamilton (co-chair) of the 911 Commission is on the Board of Directors of Sandy Berger's company - Stonebridge International. I saw another freeper post this and thought it warranted its own vanity thread.

Weekend Talk Show Preview - Analysis for August 12th and 13th, 2006On the shows this weekend I'm most interested by Vali Nasr, on CNN, and Ken Mehlman, on Meet The Press.  I think we'll learn more about the events in the Middle East from Nasr and more about the coming campaign from Mehlman than all of the other guests, combined.  Nasr is an expert, from Iran, on the issues of conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  I actually view this as our best hope of winning the coming world war.  Just as Communists and Nazis joined forces to start World...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Sept. 11 commission was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and FAA about their response to the 2001 terror attacks that it considered an investigation into possible deception, the panel's chairmen say in a new book. Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton also say in "Without Precedent" that their panel was too soft in questioning former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani - and that the 20-month investigation may have suffered for it. The book, a behind-the-scenes look at the investigation, recounts obstacles the authors say were thrown up by the Bush administration, internal...

I'm trying yet another format change this week.  I have left the background links on the entry for each guest for each show, like last week, but I've broken the Sunday shows out into separate posts to try to make each one more easy to read and discuss.  The Saturday shows will still be posted as one message, then I'll do the ping.  Please me know if this works.And I've put my (expanded) witty commentary here instead of in the ping...The most interesting guest this week should be Secretary Rice, who is on Fox, CBS and ABC, but she probably...

If John Kerry becomes President he will find himself on the horns of a dilemma - which close friend to ditch when he chooses a new Secretary of State. According to today's Washington Post, Kerry would pick his national security team within a few weeks after winning the White House and two of his closest friends, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) or Richard Holbrooke reportedly want the job of running the State Department.

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon (R) looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed...

Since President Bush recently undertook the Herculean task of explaining to the American people after months of senseless silence that (1) he did NOT deliberately deceive them, (2) liberating Iraq was a good thing, (3) NOT liberating Iraq was too dangerous a risk to take after September 11, 2001, (4)the world's intelligence services all thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, (5) Saddam had refused to comply with seventeen United Nations resolutions and prove that he had destroyed his weapons of mass destructions and not acquired others, and (6) suppressing the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq is not only...

NOT PREPARED FOR TERRORISM The still-useless 9/11 Commission has weighed in on the progress we as a country have made since Islamic terrorists murdered 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001. [related: 9/11 Public Discourse Project] Their verdict? Tom Keane, the former chairman of that committee, appeared on Meet The Press yesterday and said that "A lot of the things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the president or by the Congress. What we're concerned about now is that these recommendations -- four years, more than four years after 9/11, are...

(AP) The U.S. is at great risk for more terrorist attacks because Congress and the White House have failed to enact several strong security measures, members of the former Sept. 11 commission said Sunday. "It's not a priority for the government right now," said the former chairman, Thomas Kean, ahead of the group's release of a report Monday assessing how well its recommendations have been followed. "More than four years after 9/11 ... people are not paying attention," the former Republican governor of New Jersey said. "God help us if we have another attack." Added Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic...

p>The Talk Shows Sunday, December 4th, 2005 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Stephen Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Douglas Owsley, division head for physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Thomas Kean, chairman, and Lee Hamilton, vice chairman, of the Sept. 11 investigative commission. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; Hadley; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Hadley; Sens. Joseph Biden,...

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., speaks with guests befroe his speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Thursday at Donner Center. Discontent with the Republican Party is giving Democrats a good chance to earn big victories in the 2006 and 2008 elections, according to former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind. Hamilton, who is from Columbus, spoke Thursday during the annual Democratic Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner at Donner Center. He told a roomful of local Democrats he thinks the party can win the hearts of Americans, but only if members adjust to the times and use all their tools to emphasize their platform. The...

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation...is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks...

On April 16, 2004, a Washington Times’ editorial questioned the presence of Jamie Gorelick on the Sept. 11 Commission investigating the worst terrorist attack against the United States in history.  It was Gorelick who was “personally responsible for instituting a key obstacle [the so-called “wall of separation memo”] to cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence operations before the terrorist attacks” and the Times editorial held that her presence on the Commission “raises disturbing questions about the integrity of the commission itself. Ms. Gorelick should not be cross-examining witnesses; instead, she should be required to testify about her own behavior under...

Washington -- A former leader of the independent Sept. 11 inquiry and two veteran diplomats Tuesday accused Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf of doing too little to capture fugitive terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, reportedly hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Bin Laden, who has a $25 million bounty on his head, has been the target of a worldwide manhunt by U.S. forces since the al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, killed nearly 3,000 people. The officials expressed their concerns at the latest hearing convened by members of the Sept. 11 commission to press for implementation...

...The final intelligence reform bill approved by Congress must guarantee our troops access to both local and national intelligence sources. Any American soldier or Marine can tell you that there no longer exists a sharp distinction between tactical (battlefield) and strategic (global) intelligence. For example, ground troops serving overseas use satellites and unmanned drones soaring high above to strike targets half a football field's length away. The same intelligence assets may be used to monitor Iran's nuclear weapons program from an office here in the U.S.... ...But a 9/11 Commission recommendation -- now embodied in the Senate version of the...