Friday, April 09, 2004

Further Proof That I Am A Loser And Have No Life Either that or I'm an English teacher and still don't have a life.  Pretty much interchangeable.   Regardless, here's how I did on the "How grammatically sound are you?" quiz.  Guess I get to keep my job another year. You are a GRAMMAR GOD! If your mission in life is not already to preserve the English tongue, it should be. Congratulations and thank you! How grammatically sound are you? brought to you by Quizilla 9:42:04 PM     |

Not Any Closer I sat and watched most of Condoleeza Rice's testimony yesterday (even in Europe it was broadcast live on nearly ever news channel), and after all the hype and whatnot that led up to her public hearing, I don't think we're any closer to finding out why the 9/11 attacks weren't prevented nor if anyone in the current administration is to blame for ignoring warnings about the pending attacks. If you support Bush, then you probably think she did a great job in front of the 9/11 Commission.  You probably also think she was unfairly attacked by the Democrat members of the panel, and you probably also think she was honest and straight-forward with her answers to their questions.  You probably feel she clearly laid out how the administration is not to blame for what happened in 2001, but that the CIA and FBI's failure to work together is what led to the tragedy. If you are not a Bush supporter, then you probably felt Rice was evasive and didn't come clean after repeated questions about the August 6th, 2001 memo to the President entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" and whether or not she would support the release of that memo to the public.  You also probably feel that the Republican members of the commission were too easy on Rice and didn't ask any probing questions about inconsistencies between her testimony and those who have already appeared before them. Either way, your views going into the testimony are probably not all that different afterwards.  And in my opinion, that's the sad thing about all this.  American politics are so deeply entrenched on each side of the political divide that not even an investigation that should transcend those differences in order to prevent more instances of what happened on Sept. 11th is fighting an uphill battle against a Republican White House afraid to release all it knew before September 11th for fear of what Democrats might do with that information.  Definitely a sad display of how un-united the United States is even in the face of something which deeply effects us all equally. If you want more information about yesterday's hearings, here are a few sites that will give you very different viewpoints on what Rice and the 9/11 Commission had to say and perhaps help you form your own opinion if you don't have one already: Transcript of Condoleeza Rice's testimony in front of the 9/11 Commission Center for American Progress:  analysis of Rice's testimony The Command Post:  Mostly Pro-Bush forum discussing Rice's testimony For the 9/11 Families, a Day without Answers:  from The Washington Post - may require free registration Sticking to Their Scripts:  from The New York Times - may also require registration Why Rice is a Bad National Security Advisor:  from Slate Questions others would have liked to have asked Rice:  from MSNBC 12:58:06 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.