Party Out of Bounds

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh yesterday. Well his program; he wasn't there. The guy they had doing it started hammering on the theory that the September 11 attacks were the fault of Senator John Kerry, Democratic Candidate for President of the United States. Most of this is from an NBC News report, quoted at John Kerry's Website.

In 2001, a man named Brian Sullivan, a former special agent for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), was concerned about security at Logan Airport, Boston. He helped a local TV news program run a story in which he and a fellow agent snuck illicit items on to airplanes. They succeeded 9 out of 10 times.

The news story generated publicity around the problem, and Mr. Sullivan expressed his concerns on the FAA's Hotline. He also sent a letter to John Kerry. John Kerry then passed on the letter to the Department of Transportation's Inspector General, and asked him to look into it.

According to Mr. Sullivan, who instigated this whole story, " I think Senator Kerry did get it to the right people and that they were about to take the right action." We suspect Mr. Sullivan will regret that comment when he gets offers to write about Senator Kerry's culpability for 9/11. He is already changing his tune, according to the New York Post, which quotes him as saying, "He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck"

Now here's where it gets shaky. The question becomes what should Mr. Kerry have done? Launched a full scale congressional investigation? Gone to Logan airport himself to investigate? He got a letter from a constituent, passed it on to the correct people, and put the weight of his office behind it.

There's also the story of Steve Elson, Ex Navy Seal (so naturally he's a specialist in airport security) who tried to force a meeting with Senator Kerry and was rebuffed. The Post quotes him as saying, "Enhanced security would have prevented the hijackings, virtually without question."

I guess that's probably true; the advantage we have now looking at Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Elson is that we know what happened. It's easy enough to look at what happened in light of their warnings. However, the parallel to President Bush does not work exactly. For one thing, Senator Kerry's sphere of influence in this area was pretty limited. The President has considerably more power and, consequently, more responsibility.

I have to say it's also a bit suspicious to me that Mr. Sullivan didn't provide the same letter to the President. And that Mr. Elson only tried to warn Senator Kerry. They just happened to provide this information exclusively to the future Democratic Presidential candidate? The more likely scenario is that Sullivan sent his letter to a bunch of people, but slamming into Kerry now is the best way for him to get his 15 minutes of fame, so that's who he and Mr. Elson and the Post are choosing to focus on.