A few unsophisticated thinkers have responded to my query on why legal intelligence didn't prevent 9/11 by saying pres. bush had gotten a daily briefing headlined Obama Determined to Strike U.S. Did that briefing give the manner of striking?

No, it did not (although it did mention hijackings). However, the best evidence indicates that Bush was totally uninterested in the subject of terrorism before 9/11. How is it unsophisticated to point out that any intelligence is useless if ignored?

Bush’s response to the CIA briefer who tried to brief him on the infamous August 6th memo: “All right. You've covered your ass, now.”

Immediately after Bush’s inauguration, Richard Clarke, Bush’s top anti-terrorism adviser (held over from the Clinton administration), urgently asked for a meeting with Bush to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. He wasn’t allowed to see Bush until one week before 9/11.

It’s easy to speculate on how things could have been different, but what if Bush had taken terrorism seriously? What if he had asked for all of the U.S. intelligence agencies to forward any unusual or suspicious activity immediately to the Washington FBI office and for the FBI to give them top priority? What if he had asked for increased surveillance on suspected terrorists within the United States?

Isn’t it conceivable that the report of Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons and only interested in learning to handle an aircraft in the air but not to take off or land might have reached high level officials before 9/11 and not after? Isn’t it at least possible that some of the hijackers would have been under observation and that it would be noted that they were converging on the Boston Airport?

The saddest thing about 9/11 is that anything but complete disinterest at the top might have prevented it. The hyper-activity and interest after 9/11 did nothing to mitigate the criminal neglect before. (And, of course, the majority of the hyper-activity afterward was against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, but that’s another topic.)

illegal:

- prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules

- not legal

- Contrary to or forbidden by law, especially criminal law; Not permitted by rules

Really, how difficult is it to understand what illegal means?

When a certain subset of the population can flout the law with impunity, and even flaunt their disregard and disrespect for the law with no consequences, the Congress of the United States passes laws legalizing their prior lawbreaking, and the MSM supports all of this and calls anyone asking for accountability as shrill, it does make it difficult to understand what illegal means, in any real sense of the word.

than someone who disagrees with their opinion is someone who disagrees with their opinion and then turns out to be right. That has happened a lot in the past eight+ years, which is why they are so angry all of the time.

FDR, campaigning in 1936:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

[FDR’s comments on his first term removed]

Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.

Remove the dates, and this speech could be made today, if there were someone with the courage to make it.

If Obama had followed through on what he led us to believe during the campaign, the award wouldn’t be so ridiculous. Maybe he couldn’t have turned everything around in nine months, but he could have made a start, and made it clear the direction he was taking.

What’s so infuriating is that he doesn’t even try to justify his reversals. It is as though he never said anything contrary to what he is doing now.

I am no apologist for Obama. I agree with most, if not all, of Glenn Greenwald's criticisms of him. But maybe we do not really understand his job as well as he does?

That may well be true. But isn’t it part of the President’s job to help us understand too? FDR had his Fireside Chats, where he explained what he was doing and why.

President Obama has great communication skills. Doesn’t he owe it to us to explain to us why what he is doing is so different from what we expected? I can’t accept on blind faith that what he is doing is right when it seems so wrong.

Hey, if we bash this President enough, we'll get another, more liberal one. Right?

Maybe not. But if we blindly accept mediocrity and broken promises, that’s all we’ll get in the future.

Who knew that the key to taking over the country was first getting control of the convenience stores? Is that how Lenin did it? Did Sadam start out as a clerk in the Baghdad 7-11?

If I were one of these nuts, I’d be more worried about so many doughnut shops being run by Vietnamese. Think about it, just by sychronizing batches of poisoned doughnuts, they could virtually wipe out the police force in one fell swoop!