The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The President: Bush Cites Doubt America Can Win War on Terror: …"In the interview with Matt Lauer of the NBC News program 'Today,' conducted on Saturday but shown on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, Mr. Bush was asked if the United States could win the war against terrorism, which he has made the focus of his administration and the central thrust of his re-election campaign. 'I don't think you can win it,' Mr. Bush replied. 'But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.' As recently as July 14, Mr. Bush had drawn a far sunnier picture. 'I have a clear vision and a strategy to win the war on terror,' he said. At a prime-time news conference in the East Room of the White House on April 13, Mr. Bush said: 'One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we are asking questions, is, 'Can you ever win the war on terror?' Of course you can.'…" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/politics/campaign/31bush.html?pagewanted=all&position=

News: E-Voting Reform in the U.S. - Aug 30 2004 04:00AM: "These ten steps, while no replacement for the voter-verified paper trail, will, if implemented help reduce real and perceived paperless e-voting risks. 1) 'Paper or Plastic?' option Give voters in electronic voting jurisdictions the choice of casting a paper ballot in their polling place if they prefer to do so. Every polling place should have an ample supply of paper ballots available in case the voting equipment fails. An 'ample supply' would be a supply of paper ballots equivalent to at least 25 percent of a jurisdiction's registered voters. 2) Paper, not electronic provisional voting Federal law now requires pollworkers to allow voters whose names don't appear on the voter list to cast a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots are counted after the polls close. To protect a voter's ballot secrecy, a paper provisional ballot is placed inside an envelope that bears the provisional voter's name on the outside of the envelope. After election officials determine whether the voter's ballot should be counted, the paper ballot is separated from the envelope and is counted. In this way, a provisional voter's status can be verified without violating that voter's right to cast a secret ballot." Electronic provisional balloting, which has already been implemented in some jurisdictions, places the voter's right to ballot secrecy at risk, since adequate privacy or security measures typically have not yet been developed to ensure that the voter's right to cast a secret ballot is protected in an electronic environment. For both security and voter privacy reasons, electronic provisional balloting should be prohibited. 3) Access to source code by election officials Election officials should have the right to inspect any source code being used in their voting system. This reform has been endorsed by DeForest Soaries, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission. 4) Paper audit trail summary results Many voting machines can print a paper summary at the close of polls of all the votes cast throughout the voting day. These paper audit trails should be used to verify that the results reported at polling places are accurately reflected in the final election results. These audit trails should also be posted outside of polling places at the close of polls. In places using machines that cannot produce a printed report, pollworkers should be given charts of the races and measures on the ballot in that precinct to be filled in, with one returned to the election office and another posted outside the polling place at the close of polls. 5) Public reconciliation of results The verification process described above should be performed in public. The number of voters checking in at each polling place should also be publicly compared to the number of ballots recorded and counted from each polling place. Such proceedings should be open to videotaping and properly noticed to the public. 6) Public posting of equipment and procedures The security procedures that will be followed before, during and after the election should be publicly posted, on the Internet and/or in local election offices. Procedures should be set and published no less than 45 days in advance of Election Day. All jurisdictions should disclose the vendor, equipment name and model number, and all software and firmware version numbers of their voting equipment to the public online and/or in election offices and at polling places. Contracts with voting equipment vendors should also be made readily accessible to the public. 7) Federal and state equipment approval All voting equipment used should be fully tested and certified by state and federal authorities. All states should conduct an inventory of their equipment hardware and software to verify that what they are using has been approved by the proper oversight authorities. All equipment should be approved at least 45 days prior to Election Day. In addition, as recommended in the EAC's Best Practices, last-minute changes and software patches that have not been tested, qualified and certified should be prohibited. 8) Chain of custody of equipment and software It is up to states and local jurisdictions to ensure that the versions of software and firmware used in electronic voting machines, peripheral devices (such as smart card encoders) and vote tabulation servers are the versions that have been state certified and/or federally qualified. Election officials must also ensure that any voting equipment or device that stores electronic ballots is protected at all times. Voting equipment left in insecure locations before and after the election undermines voter confidence in election security. Voting equipment should be sealed in a secure manner before and after the election. The seal used for this purpose should be one that is less easily tampered with than the typical plastic "seals" used on voting machines. Election officials must develop procedures that describe how equipment will be securely delivered and retrieved from polling places in a timely fashion, as well as how machines will be warehoused and protected before and after the election. 9) Security plan for every jurisdiction Security plans for all aspects of the voting process should be drawn up and published at least 45 days prior to the election. These security plans should include a communications plan for polling places to ensure pollworkers have access to a phone, and an environmental plan to ensure polling places are equipped with ample electricity and lighting and are wheelchair-accessible. All tasks associated with administering electronic voting equipment should be overseen by election officials. Critical tasks such as training pollworkers, programming machines, delivering equipment, and tabulating results on Election Night should be managed by the elections department and not outsourced to the vendor. 10) Truly "stand-alone" systems Any electronic voting equipment that is used in polling places or at the local election office to tabulate results must truly be "stand-alone" devices. No modems, modem ports, wireless devices, or wireless ports should be available for use with any electronic voting equipment. Any communication ports on voting devices should be disabled. Computer equipment used to tabulate results should not be connected to the Internet.… http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=91298

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Bush Takes On Direct Role in Shaping Election Tactics: "President Bush will accept his party's nomination in New York this week on the crest of a campaign that aides say reflects an unusual level of involvement from the president himself, particularly in driving attacks on Senator John Kerry that have characterized his re-election effort since the spring. Several aides said Mr. Bush viewed this as the campaign of his life and had intervened on matters as large as the themes it should strike and as small as particular shots of him in his television advertisements. While making sure Mr. Kerry is challenged at every opening, they said, the single most consuming concern for Mr. Bush is that there is an elaborate get-out-the-vote operation in November in anticipation of a contest as tight as the one in 2000. " Mr. Bush, in an interview in New Mexico last week, was careful to present himself as above his campaign, saying he was busy dealing with the problems of the country.… Still, aides say that while Karl Rove continues to dominate the campaign as the top White House political adviser, the president's involvement and interest is far deeper than is widely known. [Page 24.] Mixed in with the updates on national security by Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Vice President Dick Cheney that Mr. Bush receives in his daily Oval Office morning briefings is a quick campaign overview from Mr. Rove. Mr. Bush's role in his own campaign was described in extensive interviews with aides and party leaders as Republicans gathered in New York to nominate Mr. Bush for a second term. They arrived buoyed by three new polls suggesting Mr. Bush's standing had improved at least somewhat against Mr. Kerry. Democrats contend that any damage to Mr. Kerry's popularity was caused by unsubstantiated claims by veterans disputing his Vietnam combat medals and that Mr. Bush will ultimately be hurt by their accusation that his campaign was secretly orchestrating the veterans' attacks. Beyond the involvement of the president himself, aides say the strategy that has brought Mr. Bush to this point is quietly being directed not from the Oval Office, or even his campaign headquarters, but by what his inner circle privately calls the Breakfast Club: a small group of advisers who gather on weekends at Mr. Rove's home in northwest Washington, where, over eggs and bacon cooked by Mr. Rove, they measure the campaign's progress against a detailed plan devised 18 months ago.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/politics/campaign/29elect.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Definitions of politics on the Web:

social relations involving authority or power www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

the study of government of states and other political units www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

the profession devoted to governing and to political affairs www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

the opinion you hold with respect to political questions www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

Sites providing political information. These may include campaign or candidate sites, political resources, or political news sites promoting a political cause or action. www.webbyawards.com/main/webby_awards/cat_defs.html

, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. richardgingras.com/devilsdictionary/p.html

The science and methods of government. Derived from the Greek word "Polis" which means community. www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/hancock/pol204/definitions.htm

Competition for power and leadership between competing interests or groups. May be characterized by artful and sometimes dishonest practices. www.projectauditors.com/Dictionary/P.html

activity within the current political party in power that may have conservative or liberal social views based on current economic, military and social activities. imet.csus.edu/imet2/herzj/websites/fashion/resources/glossary.htm

politics: 1: ~ the sum of political actions; www.nephridium.org/features/anarchy/dissertation/glossary.html

Understading of government and manipulation of others. Politics is a prerequisite for starting a player alliance. Each level gives you the possibility to gain 10 members to your alliance. So each player alliance must find a bureaucrat to act as political advisor in order to be officially recognized. (Bureaucrat only.) Level 1- Cost: 750XP 10 members allowed Level 2- Cost: 1,000XP 20 members allowed Level 3- Cost: 1,500XP 30 members allowed (Allows you to also run for Senate.) Level 4- Cost: 2,000XP 40 members allowed Level 5- Cost: 2,500XP 50 members allowed coolboar.com/d6/classes/skillsglossary.html

(POL-i-tics) the practice of government. www.ipl.org.ar/inksub/Vol1No3/lograph/glossary.html

In Harold D. Lasswell's words, "who gets what, when, and how." (See 356) highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072435569/student_view0/glossary.html

noun. from Greek; "poli"-many; "tics"-ugly, bloodsucking parasites. www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/3550/diction.htm

Transcripts and Video: View All by Speaker - 2004 Democratic National Convention Official Site: "Roberta Achtenberg David Alston Rep. Tammy Baldwin Senator Barbara Boxer Marcia Bristo Tom Carper President Jimmy Carter Elizabeth Cavendish President Bill Clinton Senator Hillary Clinton Senator John Corzine Howard Dean Dianna DeGette Rep. Rosa DeLauro Rep. John Dingell Gloria Feldt of Planned Parenthood Shirley Franklin Rep. Richard Gephardt Vice-President Al Gore Teresa Heinz Kerry" http://www.dems2004.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter3.asp?c=luI2LaPYG&b=130840

Podium Videos - Tuesday - 2004 Democratic National Convention Official Site: "Day 3: A Stronger More Secure America State Senator Barack Obama" … Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody’s son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted—or at least, most of the time. This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. And fellow Americans—Democrats, Republicans, Independents—I say to you tonight: we have more work to do.… http://www.dems2004.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=luI2LaPYG&b=125925&ct=158769

The New York Times > Washington > Scientists Say White House Questioned Their Politics: "In a report released yesterday, a scientific advocacy group cited more instances of what it called the Bush administration's manipulation of science to fit its policy goals, including the questioning of nominees to scientific advisory panels about whether they had voted for President Bush.…" Dr. Kurt Gottfried, an emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University and the chairman of the scientists group, said that the administration's actions could cause researchers to leave the government. "You can destroy that in a matter of years and then it can take another generation or two to get back to where you were in the first place," Dr. Gottfried said during a conference call with reporters yesterday. Dr. Gerald T. Keusch said that frustration led him to resign last year from the directorship of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Keusch said the procedure for appointing members of advisory panels changed markedly with the change of administrations in 2001. Dr. Keusch, who became director in 1998, said that before Mr. Bush took office, he proposed candidates and if the director of the National Institutes of Heath approved, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration invariably signed off on the nomination. But under the Bush administration, he said, Secretary Tommy G. Thompson's office rejected 19 of 26 candidates, including Dr. Torsten Wiesel, a Nobel laureate. Dr. Keusch said that when he questioned the rejection, he was told that Dr. Wiesel had signed too many statements critical of Mr. Bush.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/09data.html

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Bad Iraq Intelligence Cost Lives, Kerry and Edwards Say: "Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards declared on Friday that slipshod intelligence invoked by President Bush to invade Iraq had cost the nation lives, billions of dollars and international prestige, signaling that the Iraq war would be a central issue in their White House campaign. The presumptive Democratic candidates for president and vice president, in a 30-minute joint interview given after the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report challenging the prewar Iraq intelligence, said Mr. Bush's policies abroad had probably increased, rather than decreased, the prospects of domestic terrorist attacks. " And they said the discrediting of much of Mr. Bush's case for going to war had fed cynicism toward government by young Americans, reminiscent of the mistrust of authority that swept the country when Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry came of age during the Vietnam War. "They were wrong and soldiers lost their lives because they were wrong," Mr. Kerry said as Mr. Edwards, in an adjacent seat in the front of their chartered Boeing 757 jet, nodded in agreement. "And America's paying billions of dollars because they were wrong. And allies are not with us because they were wrong.…" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/politics/campaign/11TICKET.html?pagewanted=all&position=

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Noonday in the Shade: "In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building. Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened. Incidentally, if Mr. Ashcroft's intention was to keep the case low-profile, the media have been highly cooperative. To this day, the Noonday conspiracy has received little national coverage. At this point, I have the usual problem. Writing about John Ashcroft poses the same difficulties as writing about the Bush administration in general, only more so: the truth about his malfeasance is so extreme that it's hard to avoid sounding shrill." In this case, it sounds over the top to accuse Mr. Ashcroft of trying to bury news about terrorists who don't fit his preferred story line. Yet it's hard to believe that William Krar wouldn't have become a household name if he had been a Muslim, or even a leftist. Was Mr. Ashcroft, who once gave an interview with Southern Partisan magazine in which he praised "Southern patriots" like Jefferson Davis, reluctant to publicize the case of a terrorist who happened to be a white supremacist? More important, is Mr. Ashcroft neglecting real threats to the public because of his ideological biases? Mr. Krar's arrest was the result not of a determined law enforcement effort against domestic terrorists, but of a fluke: when he sent a package containing counterfeit U.N. and Defense Intelligence Agency credentials to an associate in New Jersey, it was delivered to the wrong address. Luckily, the recipient opened the package and contacted the F.B.I. But for that fluke, we might well have found ourselves facing another Oklahoma City-type atrocity. The discovery of the Texas cyanide bomb should have served as a wake-up call: 9/11 has focused our attention on the threat from Islamic radicals, but murderous right-wing fanatics are still out there. The concerns of the Justice Department, however, appear to lie elsewhere. Two weeks ago a representative of the F.B.I. appealed to an industry group for help in combating what, he told the audience, the F.B.I. regards as the country's leading domestic terrorist threat: ecological and animal rights extremists.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/22/opinion/22KRUG.html

How did we get from September 12th , 2001,-- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.: "George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world. He promised to 'restore honor and integrity to the White House.' Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon. Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as 'a decent respect for the opinion of mankind.' He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins. How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words 'We Are All Americans Now' and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.… " http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html

Chalabi's Seat of Honor Lost to Open Political Warfare With U.S.: "By all appearances, Ahmad Chalabi reached the pinnacle of influence in Washington four months ago, when he took a seat of honor right behind Laura Bush at the president's State of the Union address. To all the world, he looked like the Iraqi exile who had returned home victorious, a favorite of the Pentagon who might run the country once the American occupation ended. " In fact, as Mr. Chalabi applauded President Bush, his influence in Washington had already eroded. The intelligence about unconventional weapons that his Iraqi National Congress helped feed to senior Bush administration officials and data-starved intelligence analysts — evidence that created the urgency behind the march toward war — was already crumbling. Intelligence officials now argue some of it was fabricated. The much-discussed, much-denied effort by Pentagon officials to install him as Iraq's leader had already faded. By Thursday morning, when his home and office were raided by the Iraqi police and American troops seeking evidence of fraud, embezzlement and kidnapping by members of his Iraqi National Congress — and perhaps an explanation of his dealings with Iranian intelligence — Mr. Chalabi was already engaged in open political warfare with the Bush administration.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/21/politics/21EXIL.html?pagewanted=all&position=

The New York Times > Washington > White House's Medicare Videos Are Ruled Illegal: "The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly. The agency said the videos were a form of 'covert propaganda' because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, broadcast by at least 40 television stations in 33 markets. The agency also expressed some concern about the content of the videos, but based its ruling on the lack of disclosure." The consequences of the ruling were not immediately clear. The accounting office does not have law enforcement powers, but its decisions on federal spending are usually considered authoritative and are taken seriously by officials in the executive branch of the government. The decision fuels a raging political debate over the new Medicare law. President Bush and many Republicans in Congress say the law will provide immense assistance to millions of elderly and disabled people. But Democrats say the law will do little for the elderly and is so seriously flawed that the government had to resort to an illegal public relations campaign to sell it to voters. The General Accounting Office said that a specific part of the videos, a made-for-television "story package," violated the prohibition on using taxpayer money for propaganda. People seeing the videos in a newscast would "believe that the information came from a nongovernment source or neutral party," it said.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/politics/20medicare.html

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > White House Is Trumpeting Programs It Tried to Cut: "The administration has been particularly energetic in publicizing health programs, even ones that had been scheduled for cuts or elimination. Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced recently that the administration was awarding $11.7 million in grants to help 30 states plan and provide coverage for people without health insurance. Mr. Bush had proposed ending the program in each of the last three years. The administration also announced recently that it was providing $11.6 million to the states so they could buy defibrillators to save the lives of heart attack victims. But Mr. Bush had proposed cutting the budget for such devices by 82 percent, to $2 million from $10.9 million. Whether they involve programs Mr. Bush supported or not, the grant announcements illustrate how the administration blends politics and policy, blurring the distinction between official business and campaign-related activities.…" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/politics/campaign/19GRAN.html?pagewanted=all&position=

The New York Times > Washington > Commission to Allow Insurance Cuts for Retired Employees: "The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted Thursday to allow employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they become eligible for Medicare at age 65. The agency approved a final rule saying that such cuts do not violate the civil rights law banning age discrimination. The vote was 3 to 1, with Republicans lining up in favor of the rule and a Democrat opposing it." Employers and some labor unions supported the change, saying it would help preserve coverage for early retirees. But AARP, which represents millions of Americans age 50 and older, strenuously objected. The new rule creates a potentially explosive political issue, because it will create anxiety for many of the 12 million Medicare beneficiaries who also receive health benefits from their former employers.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/politics/23RETI.html

The New York Times > Washington > Pre-9/11 Files Show Warnings Were More Dire and Persistent: "Early this year, the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks played four minutes of a call from Betty Ong, a crew member on American Airlines Flight 11. The power of her call could not have been plainer: in a calm voice, Ms. Ong told her supervisors about the hijacking, the weapons the attackers had used, the locations of their seats. At first, however, Ms. Ong's reports were greeted skeptically by some officials on the ground. "They did not believe her," said Bob Kerrey, a commission member. "They said, `Are you sure?' They asked her to confirm that it wasn't air-rage. Our people on the ground were not prepared for a hijacking." For most Americans, the disbelief was the same. The attacks of Sept. 11 seemed to come in a stunning burst from nowhere. But now, after three weeks of extraordinary public hearings and a dozen detailed reports, the lengthy documentary record makes clear that predictions of an attack by Al Qaeda had been communicated directly to the highest levels of the government." The threat reports were more clear, urgent and persistent than was previously known. Some focused on Al Qaeda's plans to use commercial aircraft as weapons. Others stated that Osama bin Laden was intent on striking on United States soil. Many were passed to the Federal Aviation Administration. While some of the intelligence went back years, other warnings — including one that Al Qaeda seemed interested in hijacking a plane inside this country — had been delivered to the president on Aug. 6, 2001, just a month before the attacks. The new information produced by the commission so far has led 6 of its 10 members to say or suggest that the attacks could have been prevented, though there is no consensus on when, how or by whom. The commission's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, a Republican, has described failures at every level of government, any of which, if avoided, could have altered the outcome. Mr. Kerrey, a Democrat, said, "My conclusion is that it could have been prevented. That was not my conclusion when I went on the commission." While the commission was created to diagnose mistakes and to recommend reforms, its examination has powerful political resonance. The panel has reviewed the records of two presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Mr. Bush, who is in the midst of a campaign for re-election, said last Sunday that none of the warnings gave any hint of the time, place or date of an assault. "Had I known there was going to be an attack on America I would have moved mountains to stop the attack," he said. In an intense stretch this month, the commission pried open some of the most closely guarded compartments of government, revealing the flow and details of previously classified information given to two presidents and their senior advisers, and the performance of intelligence and law enforcement officials. The inquiry has gone beyond the report of a joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committee in 2002, which chronicled missteps at the mid-level of bureaucracies. Urged on by a number of families of people killed in the attacks, the Kean commission has used a mix of moral and political leverage to extract presidential communications and testimony. Among the new themes that have fundamentally reshaped the story of the Sept. 11 attacks are: ¶Al Qaeda and its leader, Mr. bin Laden, did not blindside the United States, but were a threat recognized and discussed regularly at the highest levels of government for nearly five years before the attacks, in thousands of reports, often accompanied by urgent warnings from lower-level experts. ¶Presidents Clinton and Bush received regular information about the threat of Al Qaeda and the intention of the bin Laden network to strike inside the United States. Each president made terrorism a stated priority, failed to find a diplomatic solution and viewed military force as a last resort. At the same time, neither grappled with the structural flaws and paralyzing dysfunction that undermined the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., the two agencies on which the nation depended for protection from terrorists. By the end of his second term, Mr. Clinton and the director of the F.B.I., Louis J. Freeh, were barely speaking. ¶Even when the two agencies cooperated, the results were unimpressive. Mr. Kean said that he viewed the reports on the two agencies as indictments. In late August 2001, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, learned that the F.B.I. had arrested Zacarias Moussaoui after he had enrolled in a flight school. Mr. Tenet was given a memorandum titled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly." But he testified that he took no action and did not tell President Bush about the case. During the Clinton years, particularly at the National Security Council, the commission has found, there was uncertainty about whether the threat posed by Al Qaeda and Mr. bin Laden justified military action. Much of the debate was provoked by Richard A. Clarke, who led antiterrorism efforts under both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush and argued for aggressive action. "Former officials, including an N.S.C. staffer working for Mr. Clarke, told us the threat was seen as one that could cause hundreds of casualties, not thousands," according to one interim commission report. "Such differences affect calculations about whether or how to go to war. Even officials who acknowledge a vital threat intellectually may not be ready to act upon such beliefs at great cost or at high risk." In the first eight months of the Bush administration, the commission found, the president and his advisers received far more information, much of it dire in tone and detailed in content, than had been generally understood. The most striking came in the Aug. 6 memorandum presented in an intelligence briefing the White House says Mr. Bush requested. Titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," the memorandum was declassified this month under pressure from the commission. After referring to a British tip in 1998 that Islamic fundamentalists wanted to hijack a plane, it went on to warn: "Nevertheless, F.B.I. information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." Mr. Bush has said the briefing did not provide specific details of when and where an attack might take place.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/politics/18SEPT.html?pagewanted=all&position=

The New York Times > Washington > Expert Kept From Speaking at Antidepressant Hearing: "Top Food and Drug Administration officials admitted yesterday that they barred the agency's top expert from testifying at a public hearing about his conclusion that antidepressants cause children to become suicidal because they viewed his findings as alarmist and premature"… Recent studies have shown that children given antidepressants are more likely to become suicidal than those given placebos. But the studies have lead to different interpretations by psychiatrists. The refusal by drug companies to publish the studies has worsened the confusion. Internal agency documents obtained by The New York Times show that federal health officials are divided, too. Dr. Andrew D. Mosholder, an agency epidemiologist, was the man charged with analyzing 22 studies involving 4,250 children and seven drugs. In a carefully argued, 33-page memorandum, he concluded that children given antidepressants were almost twice as likely as those given placebos to become suicidal. He urged the agency to discourage doctors from prescribing to children all antidepressants except Prozac. Prozac is the only antidepressant proven effective in treating depressed children, and its studies showed no link with suicide, Dr. Mosholder wrote. Dr. Mosholder's conclusions mirrored those made by British health authorities. But Dr. Mosholder's supervisors, Drs. Mark Avigan and Anne Trontell, wrote memorandums disagreeing, according to the documents. "In particular, we disagree that the data are sufficiently robust to advocate preferential use" of Prozac in children, Dr. Trontell wrote. Health officials convened a special advisory committee on Feb. 2 to offer guidance on how the agency should respond to the studies. As the agency's principal reviewer, Dr. Mosholder was scheduled to speak. He was removed from the agenda, Dr. Temple said. Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican from Iowa and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he was investigating whether the agency inappropriately suppressed crucial findings. Representative Joe L. Barton, a Republican from Texas who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he was also investigating. "It would have been very wrong for the F.D.A. to withhold any information it had about unintended consequences that might result from the use of antidepressants, especially for children and adolescents," Mr. Grassley said.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/16/politics/16DEPR.html

I.R.S. Request for More Terrorism Investigators Is Denied: "The Bush administration has scuttled a plan to increase by 50 percent the number of criminal financial investigators working to disrupt the finances of Al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations to save $12 million, a Congressional hearing was told on Tuesday." The Internal Revenue Service had asked for 80 more criminal investigators beginning in October to join the 160 it has already assigned to penetrate the shadowy networks that terrorist groups use to finance plots like the Sept. 11 attacks and the recent train bombings in Madrid. But the Bush administration did not include them in the president's proposed budget for the 2005 fiscal year. The disclosure, to a House Ways and Means subcommittee, came near the end of a routine hearing into the I.R.S. budget after most of the audience, including reporters, had left the hearing room. It comes as the White House is fighting to maintain its image as a vigorous and uncompromising foe of global terrorism in the face of questions about its commitment and competence raised by the administration's former terrorism czar, Richard A. Clarke, and its first Treasury secretary, Paul H. O'Neill. Representative Earl Pomeroy, a North Dakota Democrat whose question to a witness about one line on the last page of a routine report to Congress prompted the disclosure, said he was dumbfounded at the budget decision. "The zeroing out of resources here made my jaw drop open," Mr. Pomeroy said. "It just leaps out at you." "There are some very tough questions that have to be answered about why the decision was made to eliminate these positions because going after the financial underpinnings of terrorist activity is crucial to rooting terrorism out and defeating it," Mr. Pomeroy said.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/business/31irs.html

Q&A: Lindsay on Bush vs. Clarke: "James M. Lindsay, who worked at the National Security Council (NSC) in 1996-97 where he was a colleague of Richard A. Clarke, says the Bush administration overemphasized the role of 'rogue' states in promoting terrorism. The argument Clarke made in testimony last week before the 9/11 commission and in his new book, 'Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror,' is that al Qaeda is not connected to any state. Lindsay shares that view: 'The administration's diagnosis on the war on terrorism is mistaken,' he says. 'And I think, using Clarke's argument, that the way the administration has approached it has actually made our battle against al Qaeda more difficult.' Lindsay is vice president, Maurice R. Greenberg chair, and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the co-author of 'America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy,' which received the 2003 Lionel Gelber Prize. He was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on March 29, 2004. There have been charges back and forth in the 9/11 commission last week, in the new book by Richard A. Clarke, and from the White House. What should the public think about all this? " There are two separate questions. One is the question of what was new that we learned last week. The answer is, not much. Most of what Dick Clarke attested to before the 9/11 commission was already in the public domain. It had been reported, among other places, in The New York Times and The Washington Post and, interestingly enough, in the Bob Woodward book, "Bush at War." In that book, Bush confirms much of what Dick Clarke said, particularly on the question of the relative priority his administration gave to al Qaeda before September 11. Bush's own statement was that he knew it was an issue, he knew they were a menace, but it wasn't "boiling in his blood." The second question is, what should Americans take away from the work of the 9/11 commission at this point? I think the broadest lesson is that before September 11, there wasn't a great deal of enthusiasm in the American political system for taking aggressive actions against al Qaeda. In the Clinton administration, for which al Qaeda was a priority--there is ample evidence that the administration mobilized at various times when it feared that an attack was about to be mounted--there was an inhibition as to how much it could do. There was only so much that the political environment would tolerate, in terms of what the president could do. And indeed, Sandy Berger [Clinton's national security adviser] was accused of being too aggressive on terrorism issues.… http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/slot2_032904.html

Defying Bush, Senate Increases Child Care Funds for the Poor: "Over strenuous objections from the White House, the Senate voted on Tuesday for a significant increase in money to provide child care to welfare recipients and other low-income families. The vote, 78 to 20, expressed broad bipartisan support for a proposal to add $6 billion to child care programs over the next five years, on top of a $1 billion increase that was already included in a sweeping welfare bill. The federal government now earmarks $4.8 billion a year for such child care assistance." The Bush administration objected to the increase in child care money, saying it was not needed.… Despite the White House objections, 31 Republicans, including the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, joined 46 Democrats and one independent in voting for the child care proposal, offered by Senators Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, and Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, as part of a bill to update the 1996 law. Members of both parties said they voted for the increase because Congress could not require welfare recipients to work longer hours without more child care. "If the aim of welfare reform is to move people off the welfare rolls and onto payrolls, if we want families to leave welfare and to stay off welfare, we have to provide them with affordable child care," Ms. Snowe said. "Only one in 7, or 15 percent, of eligible children are now receiving assistance with the cost of day care." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/politics/31WELF.html?pagewanted=all&position=

When Goals Meet Reality: Bush's Reversal on 9/11 Testimony: "When George W. Bush and Dick Cheney took office three years ago, they made no secret of their intention to restore presidential powers and prerogatives that they believed had withered under the onslaught of Washington's cycle of televised, all-consuming investigations. But time and again, that effort by the Bush White House has fallen victim to political reality. It did so once more on Tuesday, when the president made a four-minute appearance in the White House press room to announce that he was giving in to demands from the 9/11 commission that he had resisted for months." His decision to reverse course, dropping his claim of executive privilege preventing public, sworn testimony by his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was part of a distinct pattern that has emerged inside this highly secretive White House.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/politics/31ASSE.html?pagewanted=all&position=