Comments

Great news - shame its taken more than 25 years for it to be properly appreciated - Tom was and still is well ahead of his time.

Posted by Trevor Gay at January 6, 2010 6:24 PM

Quick, send copies to Congress and the White House!

Posted by Randy Bosch at January 6, 2010 6:34 PM

Bravissimo, Tom! Waiting for the next book!

Posted by Judith Ellis at January 6, 2010 7:08 PM

Hardball just reported that the bomber was not caught because his name was spelled wrong in a database.
Shit will happen.
We need to get over it.

Posted by zorro at January 7, 2010 7:32 PM

The disconnects between the various agencies is understandable if also lamentable - and at least from the news reports in the UK Obama does seem to be calling people to account.

That "The buck stops here" and he isn't after a scalp demonstrates potential leadership.

That Dick Cheney, as one of the authors of the failed war on terror and bureaucrats who helped set up these many agencies without apparantly much systems thinking, is carping from the sidelines is a bit rich!

Mind yopu we have our own vacuous soundbite wannabe PM in David Cameron who must eb getting dizzy from his u-turns when challenged!

Posted by Steve Gorton at January 8, 2010 12:55 PM

"We have our own vacuous soundbite wannabe PM in David Cameron who must be getting dizzy from his u-turns when challenged!"

Brilliant Steve - I totally agree with you. What a shame here in the UK we have reached a point where I can’t find a single politician in any of the three major parties who shows even the slightest potential for leadership. We are being run by a bunch of manufactured, sameness, robots who I presume go to the University of Boredomness to obtain their Masters in Boredom. Give me a Tony Benn every day – someone who is not afraid to rattle the cage and be brave enough to stand up for what he believes regardless of what the party line may be. As far as I can tell all leading politicians in the UK are frightened of their own shadows …. And frankly their shadows have more personality than they do. Our friends in the US may well be divided about the merits of their new President but at least in Mr Obama there is freshness, enthusiasm, passion, personality and life. He is definitely showing the sort of leadership we lack so desperately. We have a moribund government with no plan, no direction, no vision, no passion ….. In summary, no hope. The current UK politicians of all parties must be the most inept and boring politicians in living memory. As a lifelong Labour party supporter it hurts me to say such things but for the first time in my life I will not be voting for a ‘party’ at the forthcoming election – my vote will go to the person who convinces me they mean what they say.

Posted by Trevor Gay at January 8, 2010 7:29 PM

"We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We've had one under Obama," referring to Fort Hood by an Army psychiatrist," said Rudy Giuliani.

Today he tried cleaned it up on CNN after a fire storm of criticism. He laughed it off which angered me:

"This is so silly. I did omit the words 'since Sept.11."

But Giuliani also failed to admit:

The anthrax scare that followed 911 as well as the "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, whose failed bid to blow up an American Airlines plane came in December 2001.

It sounds like the hypocrisy of Dana Perino, the former White House Press Secretary on Fox News:

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term."

Or, Karl Rove's disgusting response on Fox News failing to mention that his boss, President Bush took six days to respond to the "shoe bomber" while on vacation and that President Obama responded in two days and not three days:

"Look, they woke him up immediately to tell him he won the Nobel Prize but couldn't bother to interrupt his vacation for three hours to tell him a terrorist tried to bring down a plane on Christmas Day. And the President waits 72 hours before we hear from him, and it’s over 72 hours from the time of the incident to the time that the President spoke today, and then the President said some things that are simply not true."

By the way, Giuliani also made this hypocritical statement saying that President Obama waited 12 days to respond the the Christmas Day thwarted terrorist act. I wonder if he's laughing about this statement too:

"I think the president has to make a major correction in the way he is dealing with terrorism because I think he has mishandled the situation. First of all, it was 10 days too late. This is something you react to immediately, not 10 days later after your vacation.The president of the United States, when there is a potential massive attack on this country, which is what this guy was going to do, should have been on top of this immediately, not 10 days later, 11 days later, 12 days later."

Vice President Biden had a point back in a debate in the 2007 election:

"There's only three things [Giuliani] mentions in a sentence - a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There's nothing else!"

Political points are paramount to these people. This is utterly shameless and very unpatriotic.

Posted by Judith Ellis at January 9, 2010 4:17 AM