"We're in an age where we don't want to deal with serious issues, we want to deal with little boys pitching baseballs who might be 14 instead of 12."

September 13, 2001 7:15 AM

"We're in an age where we don't want to deal with serious issues, we want to deal with little boys pitching baseballs who might be 14 instead of 12." Hart says he just shook his head when he saw a former Clinton administration Cabinet official on TV Tuesday calling for the formation of a commission to study the best way to combat terrorism. "If a former Cabinet officer didn't know, how could the average man on the street? I do hope the American people understand that somebody was paying attention."
posted by rathikd (4 comments total)

The solution to this problem is to create another spook agency? We've already got the CIA, NSA, and at least one more I'm leaving out. Though the lack of attention given to the counter-terrorism commission shows one of the reasons this happened, I don't think Salon did a good job of showing how the group's work might have made a difference Tuesday.
posted by rcade at 7:23 AM on September 13, 2001

I did not feel Salon was tryfing to show that the commisssion's report would have made a difference but rather than the findings and the warnings were put on the back burner and ignored.
posted by Postroad at 7:48 AM on September 13, 2001

Hart and Rudman said that even had their recommendations been followed, they might not have been able to prevent this. "We'll never know" I believe was the exact quote. And again, the lack of attention (which I agree is a fallacy) does not mean that this necessarily could have been prevented.

Unless someone had told them, clearly, what was going to happen, I doubt very seriously that any of this could have been prevented. The enormity of the crime, the scale of destruction and the sheer balls it took to do something like this was simply beyond wild guesses.

Create another spook agency? No, I don't think that's the solution either, but notice the article points out that duties of various agencies are overlapping with greater frequency. I think better management of assets would be the right solution. If that means scraping up the best bits and putting them together in a tightly run, well-funded organization, it could work.
posted by TeamBilly at 7:55 AM on September 13, 2001

I did not feel Salon was tryfing to show that the commisssion's report would have made a difference but rather than the findings and the warnings were put on the back burner and ignored.

Exactly.

That article was the first I had heard of the Hart-Rudman Commission. How about anyone else?

Both Hart and Rudman said they didn't know if their commission would have made a difference in the events of September 11th and we will never know. If their findings/advice were heeded, the tragedy may have still occured, but perhaps we would have been better situated for the possibility for such an event and in turn it's response--aid/rescue, political or military.

I would rather have not gotten my $300 "relief" check and had the Hart-Rudman Commission's findings be heard seriously, even if it could not have prevented what happened. That's not 20/20 hindsight on my part either.

The White House basically ignored the commission. Congress got it. The White House didn't.
posted by rathikd at 8:07 AM on September 13, 2001