According to New York Post columnist Paul Sperry, John Kerry had specific evidence of lax security at Logan months in advance of 9/11 and didn't act. This doesn't necessarily make him unique, but it does call into question trying to take credit for "sounding the alarm on terrorism".
March 15, 2004 - Sen. John Kerry boasts how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/ 11," referring to his 1997 book "The New War." Too bad he didn't blast it when it really counted - four months before the hijackings, when he was hand-delivered evidence of serious security breaches at Logan International Airport, with specific warnings that terrorists could exploit them.Former FAA security officials say the Massachusetts senator had the power to prevent at least the Boston hijackings and save the World Trade Center and thousands of lives, yet he failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his state's main airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings.
"He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack."
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Comments (6)
I don't blame Bush for not ... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Harvey | March 15, 2004 11:41 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I don't blame Bush for not preventing 9/11. It was just too unprecedented of an operation to see coming. So I can't blame Kerry, either.
On the other hand, Kerry blaming Bush and then not accepting equal culpability for his own oversights makes him a hypocritical asshat in my book.
1. Posted by Harvey | March 15, 2004 11:41 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 15, 2004 11:41
2. Posted by BadTux | March 16, 2004 12:33 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Uhm, excuse me, but Senators have no power, under the Constitution, to personally do anything regarding security at airports. All they are allowed to do by the Constitution is pass laws. I suppose Kerry could have passed a law saying "Logan Airport shall tighten their security" but there was already a law to that effect that the Bush Administration was supposed to be enforcing, and Kerry informed the Bush administration that Logan Airport was not following the law. What was Kerry supposed to do after that, go don his old Vietnam camos, grab his old M16A1, and personally go out on jungle patrol at Logan Airport? I can't find anything in my copy of the Constitution that would allow him to do that, but what the hey, nobody ever reads that musty old rag anyhow, so yeah, let's blame Kerry for not going on jungle patrol and personally stopping those rag-heads with his mightly Vietnam war hero chops!
- Badtux the Sarcastic Penguin
2. Posted by BadTux | March 16, 2004 12:33 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 16, 2004 00:33
3. Posted by Jalal Abu Jarhead | March 16, 2004 7:30 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
On top of that, Senators have much sway within their respective states. Sean O'Keefe says that NASA is abadoning the Hubble Space Telescope (which would wipe out a good number of government jobs in Maryland over the next few years), and Senator Barbara Mikulski is on it like a cheap suit. O'Keefe is feeling a lot of heat right now, and the majority is coming from that little fireball of a Senator from Maryland.
So, if you want to believe that Senators just sit around drinking coffee and passing laws, Badtux, well you just go ahead and live in your dream world. I prefer to recognize reality.
3. Posted by Jalal Abu Jarhead | March 16, 2004 7:30 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 16, 2004 07:30
4. Posted by Jalal Abu Jarhead | March 16, 2004 7:33 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Wow, blockquote failed miserably there. I'll have to go back to italicizing. My previous entry should have started like this:
Uhm, excuse me, but Senators have no power, under the Constitution, to personally do anything regarding security at airports.
No argument there, but we live in the real world, where Senators and Congressmen do have the power to get things done locally.
And so forth...
4. Posted by Jalal Abu Jarhead | March 16, 2004 7:33 AM |
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Posted on March 16, 2004 07:33
5. Posted by Kevin | March 16, 2004 8:05 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Blockquoting in the comments doesn't do much, since each comment is formatted using blockquote...
5. Posted by Kevin | March 16, 2004 8:05 AM |
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Posted on March 16, 2004 08:05
6. Posted by Jalal Abu Jarhead | March 16, 2004 8:21 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I have learned my lesson, O Kevin-san.
6. Posted by Jalal Abu Jarhead | March 16, 2004 8:21 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 16, 2004 08:21