Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

The White House had fought hearings on the intelligence agencies until it was
shamed into them after Americans learned of the President's August 6, 2001, briefing regarding
al Qaeda's unwholesome intentions. That information had been leaked as part of an escalating
feud between the FBI and the CIA over which was more to blame for 9/11. In keeping
with the spirit of Operation Ignore, the Bush administration had done nothing to encourage
cooperation between the two agencies. As Jim Walsh, an expert on terrorism at Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government, told me, "We expected another attack, but we didn't do the
first thing you'd do to prevent it."
One highlight of the hearings was the testimony of agent Colleen Rowley, a courageous
whistleblower from the Minneapolis bureau, who reminded the country how the Bush
administration had committed the cardinal sin of dropping the ball while failing to connect
the dots.
In a desperate bid to change the subject, President Bush proposed the most sweeping
reorganization of the federal government since the Truman administration. Suddenly, after
arguing against it for nine months, Bush and Rove made an about-face and decided to create
a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. John Dilulio described it as "remarkably
slapdash" and "a politically-timed reversal" which had received little more than "talkingpoints
deliberation."
Immediately, Democrats like Joe Lieberman and Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who
had months earlier written legislation urging just such a reorganization, fell into line behind
the plan. Bush had turned the lemons of embarrassment into the lemonade of a popular idea.
Little did the Democrats suspect that this seemingly bipartisan lemonade would be
served with a date-rape pill.
The pill came in the form of a provision to deprive the new department's employees of
civil service protection. It was a brilliant move. Democrats were put in the awkward position
of voting against a Homeland Security Department or betraying one of their most loyal constituencies,
one that needed to be insulated from coercive political pressures. As Cleland
would put it, "I don't think you make America more safe by making the workers that protect
America more unsafe."
When Senate Democrats voted against the legislation, President Bush didn't hesitate
to debase the debate. "The Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and