Like the movie of the same name, “clueless” is a word normally associated with frivolous Valley girls and idiot co-workers, not the future of Western Civilization, but what other word can one use to describe those, ostensibly serious people, who seem unaware of the events of September 11, 2001, and how we got there, notwithstanding their membership on the prestigious 9/11 Commission?

I refer to former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska) and former Indiana Congressman Tim Roemer (D-Indiana), both of whom are very distressed that Khalid Sheik Mohammed—you remember him—the guy who, in his post-apprehension photo, looked like the late John Belushi after a three-day bender—is being held in one of those scary secret overseas prisons that ex-CIA employee and John Kerry supporter Mary McCarthy told Dana Priest about. Ms. Priest even got nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for revealing classified information that makes it easier for terrorists to kill us. I didn’t know there was a Pulitzer for treason, did you?

In case you’ve forgotten, Mr. Mohammed is the architect of the 9/11 attacks, and Kerrey and Roemer want him to be put on trial just like Zacharias Moussaoui. They, just like Chicago Tribune reporter Andrew Zajac, fret that “there’s no indication he will be tried any time soon, if ever.”

Here’s what Mr. Roemer thinks. “If the courts and the criminal justice system can handle a figure like Moussaoui, who’s on the margins (of the Sept. 11 plot), it should be able to work with somebody more compelling like KSM,” Roemer said. “I don’t understand why they don’t try the person who originated the plot.”

The article explains that Sen. Kerrey shares Mr. Roemer’s confidence in the criminal justice system to fight terrorism. “Kerrey said convictions of such high-ranking terrorists as Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, showed that civilian courts could handle sensitive terror prosecutions, such as one of Mohammed.
“Why don’t we bring him to New York City and charge him, like Ramzi Yousef?” Kerrey asked.

Now as much as we’ve all enjoyed Mr. Moussaoui’s court room outbursts, and his Springsteen song parodies, can Mr. Roemer be serious? Does he really not understand that when we are fighting a war we don’t need several ACLU-appointed defense attorneys demanding classified information vital to our national security as they defend these murderous scumbags in our courts? That’s if we’re lucky. More likely, we’d get a bunch of Lynne Stewart types in there, helping Mohammed pass coded messages to his buds on the outside. Does Sen. Kerrey really want to cite the Ramzi Yousef prosecution as the shining example of the benefits of using the criminal justice system to fight terrorism? Sure because that worked out so well, right? It only took eight years for the enemy to figure out how to accomplish Mr. Yousef’s stated objective, to bring down the Twin Towers.

It would be a little easier to be convinced that we could trust democrats with our national security if they weren’t constantly doing and saying everything they can to prove that they want to undermine our efforts to protect America. They can’t help themselves. As that great democrat Al Gore once famously said, a leopard can’t change his stripes.

Pay attention, democrats, because this is important. Fighting a war against determined, bloodthirsty, ruthless men hell bent on conquering the world is not like busting the guy who stuck up the 7-11. We’re talking 9/11, not 7/11. Consider this statement by President Bill Clinton, referring to bin Laden’s expulsion from the Sudan, and Clinton’s chance to apprehend him: “At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.” Too bad Patrick Fitzgerald wasn’t around then. He could have dreamed up something to charge bin Laden with. He’s so creative that way. But note the underlying philosophy at work here. When we fight terrorists, we have to have something to charge them with, as we do in law enforcement, which means we have to wait until they strike before we take any action. After 9/11, even Bill Clinton could see past the intern under the desk and the pizza on top of it and realize that maybe waiting until you can file criminal charges against the terrorist mastermind/financier wasn’t a good idea, but by then, it was too late.

The September 10 party’s endless parade of slogans (“no WMD,” “Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11,” “Bush lied”) all reflect their refusal to accept that the law enforcement model has no application in a post-9/11 world, at least not for our side. It’s great for the enemy.

No, Saddam Hussein is not the 9/11 perp, but he could have been a co-conspirator in the next 9/11. Bin Laden is the 9/11 perp, and the Roemers, Kerreys and Clintons of the world would have them both still scheming and plotting to kill as many Americans as possible. We’ve seen how that movie turns out. They would have us be like the frightened, hapless victim of a persistent manacing stalker, sitting in the police station while the grizzled detective explains that there’s nothing the cops can do until the bad guy “does something.” Think of Michael Douglas in “Fatal Attraction.”

The next time one of these braying jack asses proves that he wants us to wait until terrorist strike before filing criminal charges against them, tell him we’ve seen how that movie turns out and we don’t want another boiled rabbit.

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Wasn’t it great to have Walter Jacobsen on the show yesterday? He is a genuine broadcasting legend, and there is no one more knowledgeable about Illinois politics. Who better to talk about the George Ryan trial and the upcoming trial of some of the mayor’s insiders? Thanks again, Walter. You are the greatest, and I am proud to be your friend.

Unfortunately, time constraints being what they are, we didn’t have a chance to talk about Ted Kennedy’s appearance on Russert’s show (yes, Meet the Press). For the most part, it was unremarkable. The usual socialist drivel and Bush bashing from Ted the Head, including the predictable blah blah (the administration is the one cutting and running from the truth about Iraq, trumped up intelligence, more taxes are the answer to everything and if you disagree you’re “greedy,” the president needs to stand up to the “right wing”—stop me if you’ve heard any of this before). He did say one thing worthy of comment, something downright contemptible, IMO. Right up there with naming his dog “Splash,” in terms of his lack of sensitivity and ability to deny his own complicity the evil and morally bankrupt.

For the second time this week, he said that his vote against the Iraq war was the best vote he’s ever cast in the U.S. Senate. (The first time he said it was during last Thursday’s cringe-inducing interview on Larry King, in which the senator reflected nostalgically about his Nazi-sympathizing old man’s hopes that Ted could one day grow up and help stop war. I’m puking!) Better than your votes to cut off aid to the South Vietnamese and the Cambodians, Sen. Kennedy? I wondered that right after hearing the following exchange after Ted suggested a complete withdrawal from Iraq:

“MR. RUSSERT: If we got out and there was a civil war, chaos, and you saw al-Qaida moving in record numbers and Zarqawi exerting great control over the country, would you go back in?
SEN. KENNEDY: Well, first of all, I heard the same kinds of suggestions at the time of the end of the Vietnam War, the great blood bath, we’re going to have over 100,000 people that were going to be murdered and killed at that time. And for those of us that were strongly opposed to the war, heard those same kinds of arguments at the time. [emphasis mine] The fact is that the Iraqis have to win their own country, they have to be willing to sacrifice for their own country as Americans have been prepared to sacrifice, they have to stand up for their own country. And they have to be convinced that we’re not going to just have a permanent presence in Iraq. That’s what I think they believe today, and we have to disabuse them of it. The time has come, we have seen Americans do what they could do militarily, and the time has come for them to come home.”

Ted Kennedy clearly feels no remorse over his role in these deaths, choosing to forget that it was the Democrat-controlled Congress that cut off the funding to our South Vietnamese allies and sealed the fate of so many innocents. He has blood on his hands, and is blithely prepared to see it happen again, this time in Iraq. There is one difference between withdrawing prematurely from Iraq and our ignominious exit from Vietnam. This time the bloodbath might not be confined to a distant land overseas, but instead could return to New York, Washington, and other locales much closer to home.

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During last Sunday’s show (4/9/06), I told you that the time had come to face a couple of facts about Patrick Fitzgerald’s persecution (no, I don’t mean ‘prosecution’) of Scooter Libby.

1. This case is yet another sickening example of what a bad idea it is to give a prosecutor unlimited time and money to run amok looking for reasons to indict people for no reason other than to justify his appointment.
2. Any liberal acolyte of civil rights devotee Russ Feingold who thinks his liberty is at risk because the government can find out what library books he’s checked out, or anyone who lies awake at night worrying about whether the NSA is listening to phone calls from a would-be Mohammed Atta needs to realize that those imaginary threats to our freedom are just that: imaginary.

An out-of-control, unsupervised prosecutor with a bottomless pit of money and all the time in the world is anything but a theoretical danger. That’s why it’s such a bad idea (see above).

As is often the case, I also told you something you won’t hear from the 5th column MSM (mainstream media): Patrick Fitzgerald isn’t perfect. In fact, just like the rest of us, he makes mistakes. And when he does, it’s not surprising that the MSM covers them up. Just like when Tiger Woods uses a politically incorrect word, they are right there to protect their boy. On last Sunday’s show, I referred to two cases that illustrate the point (tip of the hat to Clarice Feldman, who wrote the two brilliant pieces on the Libby prosecution entitled “The Potemkin Prosecution, Part One and Part Two, for the American Thinker that you can under “Recent Show Topics” at teriobrien.com).

First, the 16 boxes of highly-classified material inadvertently delivered to defense lawyers in “one of the country’s biggest terrorism prosecution cases,” as reported by the Los Angeles Times, which just happened to omit the name of the supervising attorney in that case. (You guessed it, you sly fox, you.) Can you say “breach of national security?” Unlike the Libby prosecution, which even Fitzgerald now admits doesn’t involve a breach of national security, this blunder does.

Then there’s the case of Frank Cowles, Jr., accused in November of conspiring to defraud a hedge fund of $25 million. To quote the WaPo: “Cowles’s attorney, Robert D. Luskin of the law firm Patton Boggs in the District, said the complaint against Cowles was a mistake and that his client had been the victim of a scheme that cost him a great financial loss.

“This was a mistake,” Luskin said. “The person that was thought to be the predator was actually the prey.”

This case was dismissed March 1. Why in the world would a crackjack prosecutor like Mr. Fitzgerald indict someone only to have to request that the charges be dropped 6 months later? The difference is that in the Cowles case, Fitzgerald is accountable to the Attorney General. There are limited resources to use to prosecute the cases the office if responsible for. In the Libby case, he’s a loose cannon. One fun fact: Mr. Cowles’ attorney, Robert Luskin, is also Karl Rove’s attorney. When the Washington Post reported on the dropping of the charges, it did report this lawyer’s name, but not the name of the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.

Now today we find out that Patrick Fitzgerald had to send a “never mind” letter to the judge in the Libby case, explaining that when he said that Mr. Libby had told Judy Miller that Iraq’s effort to acquire uranium was a “key judgment” in the CIA’s 2002 NIE about Iraq, he misspoke. That little whoops from “Eliot Ness with a Harvard law degree,” to quote James Comey, the Acting Attorney General who appointed him (please try not to puke) caused the Liberal Death Star(LDS) aka the New York Times to assert that the President had sent Scooter Libby out to exaggerate the case for war against Iraq. I know you’re thinking “as if,” as in, as if there was the need for exaggeration after 17 U.N. resolutions and 12 years of Saddam Hussein thumbing his nose at the world, including the libs’ precious U.N., wasn’t enough. That’s reality, and we’re talking the MSM, the PR flaks for the democrats. Putting something in the LDS is like injecting a virus into the bloodstream of the MSM, especially if it’s a lie about the Bush administration. This latest Fitzgerald blunder was no exception.

I have had enough of Fitzgerald getting Obamaed (new verb: to Obama-the swoon over a public official despite a complete absence of any apparent reason to do so, and sometimes even with evidence to the contrary, especially by members of the media; derived from the name Barack Obama, the original beneficiary of this treatment), and the very fact that he is tells me that his prosecution is less about solving a crime than bringing down the Bush administration.

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All afternoon the History Channel has been running a series of documentaries that are part of a series called “The Presidents.” I’ve only been half listening while reading and doing other things, but when they got to Jimmy Carter and President Reagan, I started paying closer attention.

President Reagan is characterized on a graphic as “emotionally detached,” and a “disengaged manager,” The annoyingly condescending and unfailingly clueless David Gergen says that sometimes the smartest guys aren’t the best leaders and that President Reagan“was not the smartest guy.” The voiceover informs us that it was widely believed that President Reagan used to fall asleep during cabinet meetings, but the producers helpfully trot out Jim Baker to tell us that wasn’t true.

Iran/Contra is called “the darkest episode in his presidency.” Then the voice over says: “With most presidents claim would seem far fetched, but in Reagan’s case it was perfectly plausible that he was out of the loop.” The Strategic Defense Initiative is called “bizarre.”

By contrast, the man we affectionately call the King of the Useful Idiots for his commitment to the principle that the U.S. would have to learn to live with the victory of communism, Jimmy Carter’s many failures are portrayed as learning experiences for him. At least that’s what he says on the show. Yes, the producers let Jimmy speak earnestly into the camera, explaining that even though he could have destroyed Iran, he refused to use that nasty military to free the hostages, at least at first. As the voiceover explains, he refused attack Iran to get his poll numbers up, preferring to rely on diplomacy. How comforting to those 52 American hostages to know that the cardigan-sweatered Jimmuh was on the horn, looking like a facilitator at some lame corporate retreat, talking his diplomatic little heart out to free them! By the time he did try to use the military, which had been seriously neglected and demoralized under Carter’s “leadership,” it didn’t turn out so well, which is SOP with democrats. Is it just me, or does anyone else find it ironic and a little sad that this pathetic prehistoric pantload now spends about half his time criticizing the current administration’s foreign policy? This guy is at least partially responsible for the mess we’re in. The taking of the hostages was the beginning of the war on Western Civilization by radical Islam. Carter’s feeble response emboldened and enabled the enemy then, and he wants to go back to the same losing game plan now. I guess that’s why they say, there’s no fool like an old fool.

Before bailing on this show, I caught one little tidbit about President Bush 41. We learn that the deficits caused during the Reagan years forced President Bush 41 to do one great thing, at least according to the producers, raise taxes. I thought it was the democrats in Congress, seeing a huge political advantage and salivating at the prospect of the campaign ads talking about “broken promises” and “He violated our trust,” demanded that tax increase as the price of passing a budget. We know it was a good thing, though because the voice over says: “It may have cost him the election but it was probably good for the country.” That’s a win-win for the liberals behind this show: a tax increase and a defeated Republican.

That’s all my stomach could take. I’d rather watch snakes on Animal Planet. At least they aren’t trying to convince me that they are really puppies.

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Can’t anyone help Al Gore? Must we endure yet another embarrassing public outburst before Tippergets on the horn to the doctor and suggests he up her husband’s dose STAT? The latest coincides with a projectile-vomit inducing event, the so-called “green” issue of Vanity Fair. Gore’s on the cover, along with Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Robert Kennedy, Jr. See what I mean about the emetic effect?

Before we get to Gore’s latest ranting, I must mention how truly sick I am of the MSM’s (mainstream media) obsession with man-made global warming. Can’t they find a new hobby horse? “60 Minutes,” Time Magazine, and now this fashion rag, trying to masquerade as a serious public policy journal (ignore the lipstick ads, please, dear reader)—Enough already.

But then, if perfume-paged, glossy, 2-lb collection of photos of anorexic teenagers in their underwear and pitches for wrinkle remedies can pretend to make a contribution to the debate over environmental policy, why can’t George Clooney pretend to be an intellectual (or a “visionary” as USA Today recently called him, for recycling threadbare half-truths and clichés about Joseph McCarthy and Edward R. Murrow)? And even better, why can’t Al Gore pretend to be sane?

That might be a bridge too far. Consider these comments from his interview. He compares President Bush to Neville Chamberlain for ignoring “the worst catastrophe in the history of human civilization” (you guessed it), global warming. Apparently, like John Kerry, the Gorebot has decided that latching on to this global warming scam is the ticket back to living in the White House. Let’s face it: unlike Bill Clinton, they aren’t going to get there by sleeping with the President. OK, leaving aside whether Bill and Hillary have slept in the same bed since the night Chelsea was conceived, a question on which I have no opinion, you get the idea.

Speaking of Hillarita (rhymes with Evita), Gore obviously decided to take a page from her recent rediscovery of Jesus and all things biblical because in this interview he quotes the Bible, saying “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” There’s no one who knows more about vision than Al Gore, the man who needed Naomi Wolf to tell him what color pants to wear.

Worst of all, Gore repeats his scurrilous charge that President Bush was warned about the impending September 11, 2001 attacks, citing that August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief that the Left incessantly waves around to accuse the Bush administration of ignoring the terrorist threat. That dead horse turned into an amorphous bloody pulp years ago, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Gore said that President Bush Bush “was warned on Aug. 6, 2001, of an attack by Al Qaeda. ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,’ said the intelligence community in a message so important that it was the headline of the President’s daily briefing that day, five weeks before the attacks.” “Didn’t he see that clear warning?” Why were no questions asked, meetings called, evidence marshaled, clarifications sought?”

I might ask you the same thing, Al, if you could stop foaming at the mouth long enough to answer a question. Let’s talk about that PDB’s specifically, one from December 4, 1998 and delivered to President Bill Clinton and entitled “Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack U.S. Aircraft and Other Attacks.” You can find it in chapter 4 of the 9/11 Report. It’s on page 128.

Why didn’t you and Bill Clinton see that clear warning? In fairness, like the August 6, 2001 PDB, I don’t think it’s specific enough for anyone to claim that you were warned about 9/11, but since you think the earlier PDB which doesn’t even mention hijacking is, I think the question is a fair one. PDB’s aside, if this guy weren’t part of an administration that had at least 3 opportunities to arrest Osama bin Ladin, and who sat back and watched while he and his scumbag outfit launced successful attack after successful attack, his remarks would be laughable. As it is, they are strange at best and contemptible at worst. Tipper, please pick up the phone.

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