While John Kerry mindlessly calls for the immediate adoption of every recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, President Bush is doing what a strong leader does when presented with such recommendation: He's carefully reviewing the recommendations and moving judiciously, trying to do the right thing for the country rather than the right thing for his political campaign. USA Today reports:

President Bush plans today to begin implementing some of the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission but will not completely embrace the panel's central proposal, creation of a national intelligence director based in the White House, according to administration officials with knowledge of the White House's deliberations.

A presidential task force is working on ideas for overhauling U.S. intelligence that may eventually go beyond what the panel recommended. Despite political pressure to enact changes quickly, Bush intends to move carefully to avoid "improvements" that end up backfiring, officials said.

The administration is working on legislation that would create a new national intelligence director with sweeping powers over the nation's 15 intelligence collection and analysis agencies, as the commission recommends, but with one key difference: The post would not be based at the White House, an administration official said Sunday.

Here's the key paragraph of the story, one that should linger in your mind long after you finish reading this:

While Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry is calling for swift enactment of all the commission's recommendations, Bush advisers say they don't want to endorse them wholesale without fully analyzing the consequences.

Kerry's immediate endorsement of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations before he could possibly have read the Commission's entire 600-page report was a purely political move designed to seize political momentum that raises a few questions about Mr. Kerry's judgement. Is this how he plans to govern - by simply accepting whatever a "blue ribbon" commission suggests? If some of the recommendations were adopted and later backfired, would he accept responsibility for the failure, or would he blame the commission? And would he say he was for it before he was against it? :?:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20....htm?csp=22_tnt

Your questions at the end of your post show that you simply tow your party's line regarding everything and anything Bush or Kerry does. Especially cheap was your question as to whether Kerry would say he was for it before he said he was against it. If you, and all your kind, would take the time to listen to a man of intelligence, which there's no question Kerry is and Bush is not, you would understand why he said what he said. There's no point in rehashing it here. I'm sure you've heard it before, but quite obviously you weren't listening.

Also, you use as your source here USA Today. Why not use the National Enquirer? USA Today is pretty much in bed with FAUX news. Both conservative mouthpieces, and both would be expected to bash Kerry and hail Bush as the leader he isn't. Try this report from CNN and the one that follows from the AP report that follows that:

President Bush announces plans to enhance national security measures.


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Monday that he is asking Congress to create the position of a national intelligence director to serve as his principal intelligence adviser.

"We are a nation in danger," Bush said as he referred to the elevated terror levels in three parts of the country.

Under the reorganization, the CIA will be managed by a separate director, he said. "The national intelligence director will assume the broader responsibility of leading the intelligence community across our government," Bush said.

Creation of the job will require Congress -- which is in recess -- to revise the 1947 National Security Act, Bush said. "I look forward to working with the members of Congress to move ahead on this important reform," he said.

Bush added that he agreed with recommendations from the 9/11 commission, which said that congressional oversight of intelligence and homeland security must be altered.

"There are too many committees with overlapping jurisdiction, which wastes time and makes it difficult for meaningful oversight and reform," he said.

The president said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has testified 140 times before various congressional committees and subcommittees.

"It seems like it's one thing to testify and there to be oversight," Bush said. "It's another thing to make sure the people engaged in protecting America don't spend all their time testifying. And so there's going to be some important reforms."

During the press conference, the president also revealed plans to create a national counterterrorism center to build on the analytical work of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

"This new center will ... become our government's knowledge bank for known and suspected terrorists," Bush said.

The center will coordinate counterterrorism plans and activities of all government agencies and departments and will be responsible for preparing the daily terrorism threat report that is circulated to the president and senior officials, he said.

Bush said he is appointing former federal Judge Laurence Silberman and former Virginia Gov. and Sen. Chuck Robb, a Democrat, to study whether a similar center is needed to bring together information about the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

The two men are chairmen of the ongoing independent Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. The commission should complete its work in March.

Bush rebuffed assertions from the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that the administration's policy in Iraq has boosted al Qaeda's ability to recruit members. (Kerry criticizes Bush policies)

Flanked by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Bush announced the plans in the Rose Garden.

Other plans Bush outlined included establishing uniform standards for forms of identification and improving information-sharing throughout the intelligence community.

The plans blend Bush's ideas with recommendations from the 9/11 commission to protect the nation against terror attacks.

The move to endorse suggestions from the 9/11 panel and publicize his agenda comes in the midst of an elevated terror threat level in New Jersey, New York and the nation's capital and in the wake of the commission's urging to enact safety measures as soon as possible. (Full story)

Congress established the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the independent, bipartisan panel commonly called the 9/11 commission, to investigate events before, during and immediately after the attacks.

On July 22, the panel released its findings in a 567-page report, and its members urged Congress and the president to act immediately.

The White House already has identified nearly 40 examples of steps the Bush administration says fulfills some of the 9/11 commission's recommendations.

Among those identified were: pursuing a worldwide strategy of disrupting and denying safe harbors to terrorist groups; promoting reforms in the broader Middle East; developing and deploying cutting-edge technologies to secure the country's borders and ports; and reforming intelligence by improving cooperation and information-sharing among intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security agencies.


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(08-02) 08:35 PDT GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) --

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on Monday faulted the Bush administration's response to the terrorist threat but dismissed suggestions that raising the terror alert was politically motivated.

"I believe this administration, in its policies, is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists," Kerry told "American Morning" on CNN. The administration hasn't reached out to other countries and the Muslim community, he said, and hasn't done enough to protect U.S. ports, chemical plants and nuclear facilities.

"Here we are today almost three years after Sept. 11. We still don't have a national director of intelligence," Kerry told an audience of firefighters and first responders at the city's fire department.

"We need to take very specific steps outlined in the commission's report, and I believe deeply that it's time we have leadership that acted with a sense of urgency," Kerry said. "We need leadership, not followship."

The Department of Homeland Security, citing credible information that financial institutions in New York City, Washington and New Jersey were possible targets, raised the threat level for those areas.

"You take any threat seriously," Kerry, who was briefed on Sunday about the latest threats, told CNN. "What's important, however, is not to sort of bounce along from threat to threat. It's to win the war, and I believe that I can fight a more effective war on terror than George Bush is."

Kerry dismissed former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's comment that raising the terror level might be politically motivated.

"I don't care what he said. I haven't suggested that and I won't suggest that," Kerry said. "I do not hold that opinion. I don't believe that."

Campaigning in Grand Rapids on Monday, Kerry was releasing a book-length blueprint for his White House campaign with running mate John Edwards, including plans to fight terrorism and improve homeland security. The book will be available on his campaign Web site and distributed to supporters.

Edwards planned his own event in Orlando, Fla., as the candidates went their separate ways on a two-week, coast-to-coast tour through battleground states.

The federal government raised the threat alert level for the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Citigroup Center and Prudential Financial headquarters after specific and detailed intelligence revealed plans for bombings.

Kerry got his briefing over a secure phone line provided by the Secret Service while in the campaign bus, which stayed parked for about 40 minutes next to a ballpark in Taylor, Mich. The Massachusetts senator had just finished playing softball, where he hit two runs for the United Auto Workers team.

President Bush and Kerry are running neck-and-neck in Michigan and Wisconsin, which have a combined 27 electoral votes.

The book, more than 250 pages long, offers a detailed description of the Democratic ticket's platform.

"We offer this plan because we believe this election should be about ideas to lift America up, not negative attacks that drag America down," the running mates wrote.

The book contains excerpts from speeches and photos from the campaign trail and adds detail to the ideas Kerry has talked about in the months leading up to last week's convention, when he officially became the Democrats' choice for president.

The first chapter outlines Kerry's plans to stop terrorism and improve domestic security. He has said he would rebuild international alliances, modernize the American military and use American influence in military, diplomatic and cultural matters to promote peace.

Kerry also embraced recommendations by the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, including a national intelligence director to oversee the numerous government agencies that collect and decipher threat information.

"John and I know that we can build a safer America by reaching out to other countries, bringing people to our side and remembering that never does the United States of America go to war because it wants to, we go to war because we have to," Kerry told supporters at a discount mall in Springfield, Ohio, on Sunday.

The Bush campaign said the president has already acted on most of Kerry's ideas, detailing actions in 31 of 33 cases where Kerry has called for change.

Bush also asked Congress to increase homeland security spending 14 percent next year to add money for law enforcement, vaccines and other terror prevention and response programs. Most of the rest of the budget, except for defense, proposed little to no additional spending to limit growing budget deficits.


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These two stories give a slightly different picture, using the same basic information. First of all, they do not report that Kerry was rushing to implement all the recommendations in the 9/11 report. What Kerry said is: ""We need to take very specific steps outlined in the commission's report, and I believe deeply that it's time we have leadership that acted with a sense of urgency," Kerry said. "We need leadership, not followship." You can misread that any way you want, as USA Today did. Kerry also faulted Bush for not taking steps, as a leader, well before this time. Here we are, Kerry points out, almost three years after 9/11, and no iniatives have been taken by this administration to implement programs that would improve our gathering and dispensing of information. Kerry is frustrated that it's taking so long. Even still, if you read the article, Bush is throwing these recommendations into committee. Do you know how long it takes a committee to arrive at a conclusion? Too long. Kerry is not president (yet), but you can be damn sure when he is that he won't wait three years to see what a commission recommends in the face of urgency and then throw their recommendations into committee so they can languish some more.