BUSH AND THE 9/11 LEGACY: A TWOFER

From the Nation:

A Big Fat Fraud

The reality is that Bush has transformed 9/11 into an all-purpose excuse to enact his radical rightwing agenda. The White House cited 9/11 as a reason to pass a so-called stimulus bill that included $254 million in retroactive tax rebates for Enron, just before the company collapsed. Bush scorned shared sacrifice as he championed tax cuts for the wealthiest. The erosion of civil liberties through the Patriot Act and the increasing criminalizing of dissent--two longterm rightwing goals--have also been justified in the name of 9/11. And the invasion of Iraq itself, another longtime neo-con obsession, was justified, in part with cherry-picked intelligence allegedly linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda

Click here.

And from the Center for American Progress via This Modern World:

9/11: Setting the Record Straight

In recent weeks, President Bush has touted his record on national security issues, while criticizing others for supposedly weakening U.S. homeland defense. But with the President refusing to meet with the 9/11 commission for longer than one hour, concerns are being raised about the whether the Bush Administration has something to hide about it's pre-9/11 behavior. As columnist Richard Cohen notes, "If the President wants to own Sept. 11" for his political gain "he's entitled. But it does not come alone. Sept. 10 is his, too." While Vice President Cheney has derided questioning of the Administration's pre-9/11 behavior as "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war," serious questions remain about whether the White House grossly neglected counter-terrorism in the lead-up to 9/11. As a 5/27/02 Newsweek cover story noted, before 9/11 "the Bushies had an ideological agenda of their own": one that subordinated – and in many cases tried to reduce funding for – counter-terrorism efforts. As the NYT reported on 2/28/02, the shift was so dramatic that senior intelligence agents feared it would mean "that counterterrorism would be downgraded" over the long run and that there was a "lack of focus on fighting terrorism." What follows is an analysis of what the Administration knew before 9/11, and what it did – and did not do - with that information...

Click here.

Now to deviate from the 9/11 theme and finish on a humorous note: click here to learn the truth about Where Dubya Really Went in 1972.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$