Demosophia

Update on 9-11 "Staff Report"

At the moment it appears that neither side is giving the recent 9-11 Commission report much credence, and both are now emphasizing that it was merely an "interim" and not the "final" report, a fact which Lee Hamilton, the vice-chair of the commission, also emphasized this morning on ABC's This Week. In fact, Hamilton calls it "merely a staff report." In addition, under intense grilling from George Stephanopoulos which revealed strategic omissions in his recent film Fahrenheit 9$$, and during which Michael Moore also acknowledged the "propaganda nature of the film," the film maker took refuge in the "interim" nature of the report, implying that the final report would vindicate his position. Given the trend, however, this may prove to be more of a reprieve than a vindication.

But to listen to the media for the past week you'd have thought the report was the Ten Commandments. And Stephen Hayes' Weekly Standard rebuttal notes that the conclusions reached in the "staff report" aren't nearly as categorical as the press (especially WaPo and the NYT) have implied.

The silver lining in all of this is perhaps that those of us actually interested in doing so will be able to enlighten the public about precisely what is known and not known about these ties... and hopefully give some inkling of what appropriate method actually looks like. And believe me, an inkling is all I really hope for: a modest-but-real increment to the "wisdom of the people."