9/11 Commission Didn’t have All the Facts

Instapundit suggests”

If I were Karl Rove, I’d encourage Republicans to counter this by prefacing all comments on the report with something like this: “In light of the ongoing criminal investigation involving charges that former Kerry foreign policy adviser Sandy Berger stole top secret documents from Commission files, we can’t be sure that the Commission had all the facts at its disposal, but. . . ”

Which is the truth, after all. Those handwritten notes are the thing. Wait and see.

AP has an interesting report about it.
I’ll comment as I get a chance to digest it all.

Martin Peretz over at TNR:

The tale spun by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson that Iraq did not ever try to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger is now in the process of unraveling. And, of course, the phalanx of anti-war journalists is desperately trying to stop the bust-up. But it can’t be done.

He also makes serious mention of Berger:

“He clearly still has McGovernite politics, which means, in my mind, at least, that he believes there is no international dispute that can’t be solved by the U.S. walking away from it”.

A perfect fit for John Kerry, then.

A good column; read it.

Thanks to a suggestion from Q&O’s Jon Henke, (and some quick coding work from yours, truly…) Trackback is now online.

Thanks, Jon.

Boortz this morning notes a book I’ve been thinking about getting anyway:

The Connection : How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America by Stephen F. Hayes

Hayes does a fair job, I am told of detroying the liberal myth that there was no AQ/Saddam connection.

This Washtington Post Article (sorry, registration required) is remarkable in two ways:

One, that they even try to address this issue when their counterpart, the NYTimes is playing it so seriously partisan, as described over at the Belgravia Dispatch but more because it blows up the Clintonite’s defenses

After Berger’s previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case. . . .

The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

Looks like what he was concerned about was those handwritten notes, of both he and other Clinton administration people… As in, those notes would expose who knew what, when. It was in fact those handwritten notes… originals of those handwritten notes… that are now missing and have been destroyed by Berger.. before the commission ever saw them.  Now the commission will tell you in hteir report today that they didn’t miss any documents. And that’s right. But what of the handwritten notes on said documents?

Captain Ed Has more.
So does Glenn.

And of course, so does BLOGS FOR BUSH

I’ve started noting a trend, and it’s starting to bother me a bit.
I’ve noted that around half my 80-100 HPD are regulars.
And, that’s great.

But I seem to have reached a plateau as to hits, and am curious what else I can do to spur interest, particularly given that I’m covering stories that most others on the right side of the street are covering, and usually BEFORE they do.

So let me ask my readers… what would make this site a better place for you?

I don’t think I really gave much thought to the Tour e France… I’m just not into it. Yeah, it’d be nice if armstrong won, but that was about the biggest thought I had. That all changed with this story:

“L’ALPE D’HUEZ, France (Reuters) – Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc has admitted he had seen fans spit at five-times champion Lance Armstrong during the 15.5-km time trial to L’Alpe d’Huez.”

Kick their butts, Lance. Mop up the track with the faces of those idiots on their home turf… turf, may I add they wouldn’t have but for our efforts.

UPI says:

“Baghdad, Iraq, Jul. 21 (UPI) — Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday…

…”The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads,” the sources said.

They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in the trenches lying under six meters of concrete and designed in a way to unable sophisticated sensors from discovering nuclear radiation.”

Now, Reuters is reporting Iraq’s Interior Ministry is calling eth report “Stupid” but I get the feeling they don’t really know what’s what and that the initial report is genuine.

If you’ll recall, I suggested Nukes would be found before the end of August, and the Democrats would be scrambling to cover their butts on this “Bush Lied about WMD” business.

Let the squirming begin.

Doctor Walter Williams speaks to “Free Health Care” by examining the myth of the ‘superior” system of Canadian Health Care. he points to the annual report of the Frasier Institute which…

“….shows that the average time a patient waited between referral from a general practitioner to treatment rose from 16.5 weeks in 2001-02 to 17.7 weeks in 2003. Saskatchewan had the longest average waiting time of nearly 30 weeks, while Ontario had the shortest, 14 weeks.

…
….in some instances, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. Houston says that hip-replacement patients often end up non-ambulatory while waiting an average of 20 weeks for the procedure, and that’s after having waited 13 weeks just to see the specialist. The wait to get diagnostic scans followed by the wait for the radiologist to read them just might explain why Cleveland, Ohio, has become Canada’s hip-replacement center. ”

My own experience here in Rochester, NY… about 60 miles off the border of Canada (and north of a goodly chunk of that countrys’ border) is similar to reports I hear from the Cleveland area.

RTWT.

PS to Terry Pearson, you’ll be particularly interested.

Ron Nehring in this morning’s WSJ looks at Unions and Politics.

It’s funny; For all the activist faith they put in the Supreme Court, you’d think the Unions would have heard of Beck.

Michelle Malkin examines the question.

I’ve had two people e-mail me, asking why no comments about the target rich environment that is Linda Rondstadt. To paraphrase one of the songs she covered… “It’s Too Easy”

OK, OK, I guess it’s valid question… I didn’t write about it until now for reasons I never really thought through. I operated here on the pure feel of it. I guess, though, that my reasoning can be set out this way:

Why would I be spending any time and bandwidth on someone who to this day, takes former California Gov Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown seriously, on ANY level? (You may or may not recall, they used to be a serious item and to this day, she still likes his brand of politics.) The bottom line, here is she’s a nut case… she was 35 years ago when she was involved with the Stone Ponys, and alas, she’s not grown since. Too bad such a talent has to be such a blithering idiot.

Her complaints about knowing there are Republicans and Christians in her audience as posted on Drudge yesterday does expose the unbridled hatred and bigotry that is the core of leftist politics. But this isn’t news.

As to Moore’s free-speech complaints to the Alladin, let’s just bring in my write-up on Whoopie Goldberg and change the names. To wit:

….the Experiment in freedom was defined as a lack of consequence from the GOVERNMENT. You exercised right to free speech… And pretty free it was… To the point of abuse, I think.

Your problem, Ms.Goldberg (Rondstadt), is that in response to your using that right, other Americans have exercised THEIR right to free speech… and further, they have threatened to take their business elsewhere… Something they always have the right to do in a free marketplace. –Bithead 07/16/04

That’s a point the far left will never understand.

AP is saying Berger got the word today:

Of course the spin is that Berger stepped down. We know better.

“Mr. Berger does not want any issue surrounding the 9/11 commission to be used for partisan purposes. With that in mind he has decided to step aside as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign until this matter is resolved,” said Lanny Breuer, Berger’s attorney.

Well, he doesn’t want it political if Democrats don’t benefit from it. Once again; How many origiinal documents incriminating Berger and other Democrats made it to Berger’s shredder?

Update:

Captain Ed notes the same report, and asks:

The question now is when did the Kerry campaign find out about the security breaches at the National Archives? These thefts happened in October 2003, and Berger served the Kerry campaign since he started sweeping the primaries in February, at least. Bruce Lindsey had been notified at the time the documents disappeared. Not only that, but in order to receive security briefings during the campaign, Berger would have to either have retained his clearance or applied for a new one. While under this kind of investigation, that clearance had to have been cancelled or suspended — something that the Kerry campaign had to know.

The question is what did Kerry know, and when did he know it?

So right, Ed.

Kevin Patrick notes the same quote and responds:

WHAT!!???? Use the 9/11 Commission for partisan purposes??? That is the only thing the Democrats HAVE used the 9/11 commission for. They timed the release of Richard Clarke’s anti-Bush book to his testimony. Berger himself pointed the finger directly at Dr. Condoleeza Rice in his opening statement (see my original post for the exact text). Democratic Commissioners have grandstanded and filibustered throughout their questioning (only to accuse the Republican respondants of exactly that).

What a martyr for “sacrificing” of his position as adviser to keep partisanship out of the 9/11 Commission and its report. The pathetic legacy of the Clinton era’s dishonesty continues.

It’s Apollo Day. I can’t let this day go by without making note of this day in history.
Today in 1969, 35 years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the moon at 4:19pm, and Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon some 6 hours later. 

Buzz Aldrin joined him a few minutes after that.

It’s a fact of life that so far along the road of time, on which we all travel, that such momentous events are often not accorded the respect they deserve… to say nothing of the people involved in those events. Put more simply, we forget.

But let’s remember, for a moment, the occasion. Here’s a group of men who could have died for any of a million reasons. Any malfunction of their gear, no matter how slight, would result in their being unable to return to earth, facing a death by asphyxiation. As far out of reach as they were, there would be no hope of being saved, were something to go wrong. No stopping at the corner store to pick up supplies should the need arise. Look on these pictures, dear readers, and know that what you’re looking at is evidence of courage in it’s pure, raw form.

These pics have been shamelessly lifted from the Nasa site in the hope of getting you to visit their site for some added pics and some fine audio files, as well, all of the 7/20/69 event.

(update: Hey, Bit… isn’t that 35 years, not 25?…. Uhhh yeah. Thanks. Typo corrected.)