Our leaders' "lack of imagination"

Imagination Watch

I would like to point you toward this important David Corn article on the bad news that the 9/11 commission report holds for Bush. In it, David Corn details the commission's findings on the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the "Prague meeting" between Iraqis and Atta, the non-reaction to the threat levels in the summer of 2001, and the importance of terrorism to the Bush administration before the attacks. However, this comment to the article, specifically responding to chairman Kean's rather lame assertion that the attacks succeeded because our leaders possessed a "lack of imagination", caught my eye. It is a great rant, and I repost it here in it's entirety:

An abundance of imagination.

I have just this minute seen Governor Kean, the chair of the Congressional Investigative Committee on the 9/11 tragedies, tell a television interviewer that what hobbled our competence, understandings and the entire airforce and space command’s capability to scramble jets through routine procedure, upon learning (almost immediately after the fact,) that 4 aircraft had been hijacked on the Eastern Seabord…was “a lack of imagination.”

This could mean a government job for me, as I imagine things all the time. Just like you. It’s called creative intelligence and it is not that rare among military and security professionals.

I imagine FBI Agent John O’ Neill, who quit the agency in frustration and disgust, after reporting his alarming but cohesive findings with an exuberant degree of tenacity, died a horrifying but heroic death on 9/11, watching the enemy explode on in, as expected.

I imagine, in his heroic, and desperately responsible mission as Head of Security at the WTC, thoughts of the security officers and agents he tried to bring to reality came into his mind and the words “son of a bitches” escaped his lips.

I imagine Agent Coleen Rowley suffered an equivalent blast of rage, as she too, early on, was reporting the pressing realities her footwork had brought her to. She did all the job you could ever hope for from an excellent field officer. It took imagination…and dedication and skill. I imagine Karen Kwiatkowski and many others knew the score, and were hobbled and hushed.

I imagine, since Kean himself had the gall to mention novelist Tom Clancy in a jocular context, (Clancy had IMAGINED that planes could be used as missiles and flown into buildings, and uh, wrote a hugely distributed bestseller describing it). I imagine that it is not only disingenuous but an outright deception to suggest that “nothing” could have been done.

Gosh, it was Unimaginable to even NSA Condaleeza Rice who received the memo titled “Bin Laden Plans To Attack U.S.” Gosh, she didn’t even have to imagine it; everyone else in the security, political and literature world already had imagined it. Going back YEARS. And HANDED it right to her. Imagine that. She says she couldn't. Is she that stuipid, really? I imagine not.

I imagine that the Secret Service, with the understandings that it’s agents are expected to catch a bullet themselves, rather than let anything harm the President, would have immediately swarmed Mr. Bush and hustled him out that classroom photo-op…as is absolutely essential, and routine…and in a FLASH, my friends...UNLESS it was understood that the President was not really in danger, despite the attack in progress on the WTC, and a plane heading for the Washington area.

Wow, now I’m imaging all sorts of things.

I'm imagining thousands of American service families in indescribable pain and grief, and I imagine this will continue in the name of stolen oil, rather than whatever spin they imagine you will buy.

I imagine that this 9/11 committee is really a cover-up in itself. A smarmy little tacit agreement to spread the blame around evenly, appear neutral and bi-partisan, diminish the entire project with a blithe, and forgive me, rather stupid comments about “lack of imagination.” All the while subtly pushing their quasi-advocacy of the Bush cabal.

I would like to make Secretary of Imagination a Cabinet level post, and am myself, available for that position, because I am damn sure those monkeys get a good health plan.
And I can imagine all sorts of stuff all day long. I’ll relocate to D.C. if necessary, hey, anything to serve. And the need is there. Kean told us.

Bush 41 had a problem with “the vision thing.” See, no damn imagination in that family.

I imagine that it is heartbreakingly sad for a lot of people, who will innocently look toward this panel with great hope, to swallow this verbose and profane prattle about “systemic” problems, that of course, absolves EVERYONE of all responsibity.

I imagine that these Congressional Committees are, intrinsically and inherently and certainly by design, efficient fail-safe cover-up distractions, while the violence and terror alerts they themselves issue, are also tools and playthings for war profiteers that, basically, employ them. That gets easier and easier to imagine.

I imagine a new President should take the office ALREADY up to speed on security issues. The previous President had briefed the present one, along with candidate Gore, on top secret security issues daily. We all continue to learn, one hopes, but still, the Presidency and the ability for one to function as Commander in Chief, with an up and running staff, would NOT be an ‘on the job training,’ kind of position, and if it were…Bush should have cooled it on the constant vacations; I imagine that most people assume if they get a job, they had better work it.

I imagine things could have worked out differently if an idiot was at least smart enough to not be arrogant. I am certain that the Gary Hart report on Homeland Security, that Clinton ordered, and that Bush has used as his outline and index, would have alarmed anyone with even a trace of imagination, as it was delivered and released months before the 9/11 attack.

This was no “lack of imagination”. Bush imagines he is Christ’s messenger, even as he kills and kills and smirks and kills. He imagines American idiots will fall for the more genial softer image he is playing for the hidden and protected campaign.

Someone imagined the ‘war president’ could maybe turn into ‘the peace president’ because these wars are a catastrophe of mismanagement and greed. That showed imagination. The scriptwriters for the appointed President certainly have imagination. Where is the “lack of imagination?”

There is a plethora of imagination…and information. Every country on the globe was flooding our Intelligence officals with “chatter” simultaneously. Some one, I imagine, was holding his hands over his ears and singing “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.”

Bush can imagine a kooky star wars space missile program yet all our present satellites and reporting air control, NORAD, and other Air Force specialists, down from your sneakers and up to outer space could not protect The Atlantic coastline? I would rather not imagine who, or with what mechanism, NORAD was totally impotent and crippled. I imagine they get a huge budget to do what they did not do when it counted most.

Isn’t that right where our financial and historical monuments are projected and protected?
D.C. Aren’t there the most sophisticated fighter jets in the history of mankind all stationed strategically to protect us from attack? And I imagine we have many arsenals, and bases within minutes, if not seconds, convenient to the NW section of D.C.

I imagine that the Iran-Contra committee was a coverup in itself…throwing a little Ollie North dramatic posturing at you to get you off the scent of the coup perpetrated by Reagan/Bush when they illegally sold arms to Iran under the condition that they would keep the hostages until the morning of his inaugeration. Carter was vilified. The “scenario” played itself out as imagined.

I imagine the Watergate/Nixon hearings were really to cover up the inconvenient fact that Howard Hunt, who perpetrated the break-in, was also clearly photographed as one of the “tramps” on the grassy knoll, during the JFK hit. I imagine it was better to retire Dick than have to deal with that.

I imagine that something is rotten in Washington, not Denmark.
I imagine more killing and deaths even as we speak and read our truths to each other.
I imagine we are facing the most vicious challenge to our freedoms in history ever.
I imagine “people say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”
I imagine we will have to straighten this out in no uncertain terms, right now, this year, even in the midst of a hate and disinformation campaign funded by ultra mega millions.
I imagine we are in more trouble than any of us wants to really imagine.

Billy Random
Secretary of Imagination

GOP Countersmears Watch

Knowing that the 9/11 Commission would have to come to unfavorable conclusions about the administrations handling of terrorism before 9/11, the GOP has carefully laid in three strategic countersmears to help its members hold on through the painful cognitive dissonance of believing that Bush was anointed by God, but that he's done a terrible job. The three smears are against Jamie Gorelick, Sandy Berger, and Joe Wilson. This very intelligent post on the blog "Seeing the Forest" details the three smears and their psychological purpose.

Wilson Watch

Then again, Joe Wilson has not been careful about what he has said. He keeps saying that Bush lied in the 2003 State of the Union when he said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Wilson, on his trip, found out that Iraq did not buy uranium from Niger, and that in fact there is no way Iraq could have done that. That is fine and good, and Wilson has rightly been putting that up as a problem for this administration. However, Wilson hasn't caught Bush in a lie, but he has repeated said he has. If you look at the phrasing that Bush used, there is no way that anyone could disprove it. It is a vague, scary statement, the kind that Bush is so apt to use to stampede the people into doing whatever he wants, like invading another country with only the flimsiest of pretexts. Bob Somerby, that stickler for detail and honesty, outlines some of Wilson's problems in a couple of posts. It is a shame that Wilson, who I think has been acting in the best interests of the country, has not been more careful with his claims, as his mis-statements give the GOP more smoke with which to screen.

Daily Show Watch

Finally, here is the hilarious take of the Daily Show on the idea of postponed elections due to terrorism. Go to The Daily Show site and click on the "Delayed Elections?" video.