A Hard Right to the Chin | Main | Oh, and uh, they lied

July 8, 2003

Dodge, parry, thrust

Sticking with the Wall Street Journal--and why not; if they say it, it must be true--here's a piece on how the White House has blocked and befuddled the so-called 9/11 Commission as it works to meet a May '04 deadline that its Republican chair, former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, says he has no intention of extending because "the White House has made it known they don't want it to go into the election period." Highlights:

President Bush successfully opposed the creation of the commission for more than a year. He said publicly that an independent investigation would distract leaders from his newly-declared war on terrorism.

[snip]

While the law establishing the commission requires it to build on a classified, nearly 900-page report of a Congressional inquiry into intelligence agencies, the White House blocked the commission's access to that report until two months ago.

[snip]

The commission's work also has been hampered by disagreements over its budget. ... In late March, Mr. Kean warned that the commission would soon go broke. He visited the White House to request an additional $11 million, he and others say. The White House told him to expect that an appropriation for the commission would be included in the president's supplemental budget for the Iraq War, according to Mr. Kean and others.

But in March, when the White House announced that budget, there was no allocation for the commission. Members of the commission and Congress complained publicly, as did families of victims. Within a week, the White House offered to come up with $9 million, $2 million less than what Mr. Kean had requested. But Congress appropriated $11 million for the commission instead.

There's more--and remember, it's not from some liberal rag, it's from the Wall Street Journal.