© 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
By Jack Cashill
Al Gore fans will not be disappointed.
His new book, "Assault on Reason," exceeds his own impressive past standards for dishonesty and hypocrisy.
Most
illuminating is his discussion of the security lapses that led to Sept.
11. This, he reassures his eager readers, was almost entirely the fault
of President Bush.
Gore,
in fact, has the mind-boggling moxie to charge the pre-9/11 Bush with
"a reckless disregard for the American people," as though his own hands
were clean.
They are definitely not.
I
refer here specifically to Gore's well-documented role in undermining a
blue ribbon commission formed in 1996 to assure aviation safety, a
commission that he himself chaired.
(Column continues below)
Gore
has likely convinced himself that should he enter the presidential
race, the media will keep the story of the commission buried.
He is confident too that Hillary, unlike John Kerry in 2004, will not try to exhume it, her hands being no cleaner than his.
And
should an eventual Republican opponent try to surface the story, Gore
can accuse the Republican of "swiftboating" in full confidence that the
media will echo his accusation.
Indeed,
the media have already turned "swiftboating" into a verb meaning "to
libel," even though the swiftboaters succeeded in sinking John Kerry in
2004 only because they were telling the truth.
Regardless,
the story of the Gore aviation commission is real, raw and sufficiently
damning that it could dissuade even the global warming crowd from
voting for the man.
The story dates back to July 17, 1996 – Liberation Day in Saddam's Iraq and two days before the start of the Atlanta Olympics.
On
that soft summer evening, at least 270 people on the south coast of
Long Island saw streaking objects zigzagging off the horizon and
culminating in the destruction of TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747.
If
you are thinking, "Oh no, a conspiracy theory," check that thought. To
appreciate Gore's perfidy, you need not subscribe to any particular
explanation for the crash. You need only accept the oft-repeated claims
of Gore and Clinton that they did not know the cause.
Most
of the 270 eyewitnesses on July 17 had already talked to the FBI by
July 25 when President Bill Clinton announced the formation of a
commission to deal with the perceived attack.
It
would be called the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and
Security. Chairing it was to be then-Vice President Al Gore.
Over
the next several weeks, before the commission was formally authorized,
the pressure built on the White House to take action.
The
New York Times did most of the pressuring. It would run one front-page
story after another on the still-unresolved crash. On Aug. 14, Times
reporter Don Van Natta ratcheted up the pressure.
"Now
that investigators say they think the center fuel tank did not
explode," wrote Van Natta, "they say the only good explanations
remaining are that a bomb or a missile brought down the plane."
On
that same day, likely to show resolution in the face of crisis during
this campaign season, President Clinton called Victoria Cummock and
asked her to join the safety and security commission.
He, and his vice president even more so, would come to regret this call.
Cummock
was the widow of a Pan Am Flight 103 victim and an airline safety
advocate. In inviting her, the president assured Cummock that he wanted
to develop tough new counterterrorism measures.
On
Aug. 22, Clinton issued Executive Order 13015 to officially establish
the commission. On that same day, however, his Deputy Attorney General
Jamie Gorelick set in motion a series of events that would subvert the
commission's work.
Gorelick,
apparently, has a talent for subverting commissions. She would do the
same to the 9/11 Commission and was likely appointed for that very
talent.
On
Aug. 22, Gorelick had a come-to-Jesus meeting in Washington with the
tenacious head of the FBI investigation, James Kallstrom. Whatever was
said in the meeting, it turned Kallstrom from bulldog to poodle.
Immediately
afterward, behaviors begin to change, especially after the New York
Times broke a pre-leaked headline story the next day, top right: "Prime
Evidence Found That Device Exploded in Cabin of Flight 800."
This
article stole the thunder from Clinton's election-driven approval of
welfare reform in that same day's paper and threatened to undermine the
peace and prosperity message of the next week's Democratic National
Convention.
In
the weeks ahead, the president and vice president would see that
nothing stood in the way of their re-election, certainly not something
as intangible as the safety and security of the United States.
Next week: "How Al Gore subverted his own Aviation Safety Commission"
Get Cashill's books, "Mega Fix: The Dazzling Political Deceit That Led to 9/11" and "First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America"
Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue.
To jump to the original WND article,
Click here
Al Gore's Achilles' heel
Posted: July 12, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
This is the first of a three part series on how likely presidential
aspirant Al Gore subverted the White House Commission on Aviation
Safety and Security that he himself chaired and, by so doing, threw the
doors open to the terrorists of 9/11.
© 2007
First TWA 800 Archive
Previous TWA 800 Archive
Next TWA 800 Archive
Return to Dan's Archives Page
Return to Dan & Sheryl's Home Page