It amazes me, really, that the speeches the President give have the reactions canned before a word is ever spoken. I cringe when I hear the President speak, not because I find what he says repugnant in any way, but because he’s prejudged from the time he opens his mouth.

The President made some seriously cogent points tonight. Amidst the cackling gaggle of circling vultures came calls for the President to admit he was wrong, admit what he did was wrong in Iraq, admit he was wrong about 9/11, admit responsibility in some degree for what may (or may not be) an erroneous assessment of the number of ongoing field investigations the FBI was conducting prior to 9/11 and on and on it goes.

So what does all this mean?

It means, in my not so humble opinion, that the reporters in the White House press corps went into that press conference with one aim: Destroy the President by any means necessary. Consider the inconsequential questions that were asked repeatedly. Why did Ann Compton ask the President to comment on a finding of the 9/11 committee they haven’t even made yet? Why would they be asking the President to apologize for 9/11? Why would they be asking him to admit personal responsibility? Why does it matter?

Because, like the 9/11 commission, the idea is to assign blame, and contrary to the repetitive mantra being said over and over that “there’s plenty of blame to go around,” the blame seems to be landing on one side of the aisle; but wherever it’s landing helps nothing.

John Ashcroft came to the hearings today holding a recently declassified memo. In the memo was a strict warning to the FBI and CIA that any cooperation between agencies was not to happen, and was illegal. That stern warning was signed by 9/11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick. Now, you would think that fact would be big news? That one of the 9/11 commissioners is responsible for one of the very weaknesses in our national security infrastructure she is charged with investigating. Instead, the vultures asked the President to apologize for 9/11, asked the President how he’s dealing with the fact that no one supports him anymore, and what he personally would have done differently to stop 9/11.

John Ashcroft’s memo says more about the commission than it does about Ashcroft. In fact, so does all the other public kangaroo court bullshit going on at this hearing. From the ripping of Condi Rice by partisans Gorelick and Kerrey, to today’s assassination on Janet Reno and Louis Freeh, the commission is becoming a soap box upon which people come wearing full football gear and bullet proof vests. The idea is to protect yourself because if you don’t, the blame for 9/11 will land squarely upon your shoulders.

Imagine having to bear that responsibility?

Imagine being Louis Freeh and being criticized for not sharing information inter agency while holding a memo from the Department of Justice ordering you not to? No one speaking to that commission will speak candidly because the whole proceeding is a quaint game of “gotcha last.”

The media has already made up its mind. Forget that the Clinton Administration was in office for 8 years, 4 of which included the planning years for the 9/11 attacks. Forget that a memo ordered no interagency cooperation, and that memo was signed by Deputy Attorney General and 9/11 commission member Jamie Gorelick. Forget that every single witness, Democrat or Republican alike, has discredited Richard Clarke. Forget, even, that most right thinking people realize that there was nothing any government, Clinton or Bush’s, could do to stop 9/11 and the only reason we think so is because we know the final chapter of the story.

Forget all of it because the media has made up its mind. The PDB is a smoking gun, and George W. Bush is downplaying the memo too much because he doesn’t want the blame to fall at his desk.

Do you realize what this is? It’s the equating of an 8 month Presidency to an 8 year administration and the evening out of responsibility. Frankly, I’m not interested in who, I’m interested in what. I thought the idea was to figure out what happened so as not to allow it to happen again? Instead, the report will be a distribution of blame dispersed among those testifying. Good entertainment, but millions of dollars wasted.

While the media is obsessed with what Bush knew and when did he know it, and dragging out the Kristen Breitweisers and Monica Gabrielles whenever they need someone to knock the administration, the real work of the commission is not happening, and no one is bothering to question. Why?

Questions that need to be answered include:

1. How will agencies better share information in the future?
2. How do we stop worrying about statute of limitations expiring (as Louis Freeh said they would, hence his not briefing the incoming administration on the Cole bombing) and start worrying about ending the problem before it gets to a court?
3. How do we make sure that the budget of the intelligence agencies doesn’t become a casualty whenever a welfare mother in South Central LA wants to have another kid?
4. How do we make sure that agencies are able to recruit people whomever they may be to infiltrate terrorist organizations effectively?
5. How do we protect airliners from being taken by storming the cockpit, and why weren’t the 1999/2000 commission recommendations to strengthen cockpit doors taken and implemented?
6. Why was a request by the President for assessment of current threats met with a historical background which could have been gleened from an issue of Time Magazine and what may be a lie about FBI manpower assigned to a problem?
7. Why were planes not on the ready and why did it take as long as it did to scramble the F-16’s that showed up over New York City after the fact?
8. Why, after numerous attacks on the United States were we not actively pursuing Osama Bin Laden in the time period from 1993 under George H.W. Bush, when he was connected to Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (the blind cleric under whose direction the first WTC bombing happened) to the bombing of the Cole, and why wasn’t Condi Rice’s team briefed on the up to date threat that Al Qaeda presented?

Those are just some of the questions I want answered. I don’t care who was to blame. I don’t care if Clinton or Bush or Reno or Freeh or Clarke dropped the ball. For argument’s sake, let’s just say they all did.

But right now we don’t even know what the ball is, let alone how to keep from dropping it yet again, and that scares me way more than what wasn’t inferred in some historical background info on a daily briefing. A 9/11 style event will happen again if this is the best effort we can put forward into learning from the last one and preventing the next one.