9/11 Commissioners Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton failed America

Congratulations, America. You wanted your heroes, and you go 'em.

We now learn that the 9/11 Commission couldn't get the information it needed from Rudy Giuliani because newspaper editorials criticized the commission for asking tough questions of NYC's firefighters and police. You see, the firemen and the police were heroes, so we don't get to ask them tough questions that might help us avoid a future terrorist attack, or at least respond to it better - you see, that just wouldn't be "nice." Oh no. In Soviet America, we just tell the cops and firemen how great they are, rather than get the information we need to save another, oh, 3,000 lives.

We learn all of this via a new book from the co-chairs of the 9/11 commission, a Republican and a Democrat. They tell us the commission was stymied on a number of fronts by the Bush administration as well.

Well here's a thought. Rather than telling us this in a book years too late, why didn't the book's authors stand up at the time and make a difference when it mattered?

Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton didn't seem to have a problem when the commission was still active. They didn't have a problem writing a final report that they now claim might be a wee bit wrong. Oh no. Rather than going public at the time in order to get the answers we needed to stop the next big one, these guys sucked it up, like all good Washington politicos do, and basically fed America a load of crap in their final analysis and recommendations, simply because they felt it was better to get some final report, any final report.

What is the difference between what Kean and Hamilton are telling us in their book today, and what, say, Jayson Blair did in his tell-all book about his plagiarizing days at the New York Times? We didn't believe a thing Blair told us in his book because he was a proven liar. Why should believe Kean and Hamilton now, or at the very least have any respect for them, when they tell us that they basically sold us out in the final 9/11 report because they didn't have the backbone to do anything about it when it mattered? Now, that it's too late, they're coming clean? In August, no less, when the press is on vacation, along with all of Washington and most of America?

Real profile in courage, guys.