There is a devastating case against Bush that runs through the 9-11 commission statments. The trick will be making this case in a way that gets through the various media filters.(See my prior diary entry for the detailed case based on referenced citations from the commission statements)
http://katieforeman.dailykos.com/
These are the media filters I designed the case to get through.
Media filter 1: The "they are both imperfect so they are the same filter." This is a logical fallacy that some in the media confuse with objectivity and some Nader voters confuse with a coherent political philosophy. It's like saying that a B student and an F student have equivalent academic records because neither earned an A. This filter almost always favors Bush since he tends to be the F student.
As applied to the 9-11 statements, the thinking by commentators goes like this: Both Clinton and Bush made mistakes and missed opportunities in the lead-up to 9-11. Therefore, Bush and Clinton have equivalent records on terrorism. Wrong!! The first part of the syllogism may be true, but the conclusion is demonstrably false.
yes, Clinton and Bush both made mistakes, but when the CIA was warning of an alarming increase in the terrorist threat level during the Millenium, the Clinton administration galvanized the federal government to protect people in the US and around the world from the planned attacks. With diligence and some luck, they saved lives and thwarted the attacks.
When the CIA warned that al Qaeda was planning attacks "qualitatively different" than anything we had seen before, Bush and his administration were AWOL. Read more.....
This seems like a pretty big difference to me, but most commentators haven't picked up on it. They tend to marginalize differences. That's why I first conceded that Clinton made mistakes, and then specifically pointed out the differences between Clinton and Bush.
Media Filter 2: The media tends to focus on personalities and politics. They've turned the story into a he-said she-said battle between Clarke and Rice. This is just a distraction. As I've heard Clarke himself say over and over to deaf ears, this story is not about Clarke. We need to explicitly make the case based on facts in the commission statements that the White House is not contesting. There is nobody for the White House to discredit to make those facts go away.
Media Filter 3: The media tends to go for the most sensational stories like, "who is to blame for 9-11?" This let's Bush off the hook. There is no way to prove that real leadership from the top levels of the Bush administration would have helped the relavent agencies connect the dots and stop the attacks. Likewise there is no way to prove that Bill Clinton bears no responsibility for the attacks on 9-11.
We need to focus the debate on the real charges against Bush: During a national security crisis, Bush and his administration were too arrogant to heed the many warnings from the CIA and others about the gravity of the threat. Bush and his administration were too involved in their pet ideaologically driven projects to be distracted by the very real national security crisis.
Media filter 4: The just "wear them out" filter. This has to do with the media's difficulties in handling factually arcane arguments. For example, did the Bush administration really develope a new more aggressive counterterrorism plan or did they just adopt the Clinton plan with minor changes?
You have to be paying pretty close attention to figure out what is really going on here. Much of this argument is pure semantics- Did the Clinton administration hand over a plan with a series of options (Clarke) or just a series of options (Rice)?
The Bush administration maintains that their plan was more aggressive-calling for the elimination of Al Qaeda whereas the Clinton plan wanted to "roll back" aL Qaeda to a rump group over a period of 3 to 5 years. From Clarke's testimony it appears that the more aggressive language in the plan was inserted after 9-11. The Bush administration is trying to blur what was in the final plan adopted after 9-11 with the plan they were working on before 9-11.
These are "wear them out" arguments we don't want to get bogged down in. Most people watching at home will not have time to sort through all of the relavant testimony. Many of them just won't know who to believe, and will tune out.
In the case I make in my preivious diary entry, I argue in a way that overcomes the need to engage them on this issue.
There are some very damning facts in the 9-11 commission statements.
For example:
Bush asked Cheney to chair a committee to look at domestic preparedness in the event of terrorist attacks. These meetings were "just getting under way" when 9-11 occurred.
Rumsfeld didn't recall any particular terrorism related topic other than the Predator that captured his attention before 9-11.....
There are many more easily understandable, easily verifiable, and easily accessable facts like these. However, what's been missing is the argument that will push these facts through the media filters into the public's conscousness. That's what I tried to add in the case I made in my previous diary.
The facts are definitely on our side. This election depends on our ability to put together the arguments that will successfully make our case.