ASScroft Gets a Free Pass from the Fake 9/11 Comission

ASScroft Gets a Free Pass
Are the commissioners afraid to seem partisan?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, April 13, 2004, at 5:06 PM PT

Why did the 9/11 commissioners let John Ashcroft off the hook?

As the attorney general took the stand at the hearings this afternoon, any viewer would have expected him to face a very big hook indeed. The evidence was mounting that, of all the negligent screw-ups in this tragic and woeful tale, Ashcroft may have been the most thoroughly negligent.

Excerpt -

Anticipating a devastating 90 minutes on the stand, the New York Times' headline this morning read, "9/11 Panel Said to Offer Harsh Review of Ashcroft." One former official with whom I spoke predicted that Ashcroft would emerge so battered that Bush might tap him as the fall guy.

And yet not only did the commissioners fail to lay a glove on the guy, they barely took a swing.

Something weird is going on in a session when former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson—the panel's fiercest Republican attack dog—asks the most critical question. But that's what happened this afternoon. Thompson asked Ashcroft about Pickard's claim that he didn't want to hear any more briefings about counterterrorism. Ashcroft replied, "I never said I didn't want to hear about counterterrorism."

That was the end of the exchange. No follow-up. Somebody's lying—Ashcroft or Pickard—about an important matter. The commission didn't seem bothered by that fact.