Let's not play the blame game

The backlash against Rep. Dick Gephardt, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Tom Daschle, who are trying to taint President Bush as somehow allowing the Sept. 11 tragedy, has begun. Gephardt and Daschle, their party's respective leaders in the U.S. House and Senate, are both planning to run for president against Bush. Hillary Clinton may throw her hat into the ring at some point, too. But their political gambit is not only disgraceful, it is shortsighted, threatening to backfire against them and the country in the long run.

Americans understand - even if the FBI and CIA don't want to admit it - that Sept. 11 was a colossal failure for our intelligence operations. There are legitimate questions to ask about the government's lack of preparedness, and both the White House and Congress have been asking - and answering them - for months. The purpose of this review: To solve the problems in order to prevent future attacks.

But what Gephardt, Clinton and Daschle are doing is vicious. They are seeking to spin information in a way to suggest that Bush knew specifically in advance about Sept. 11. Why? Because for months they've tried to dent Bush's historic popularity with no success, and they're desperate to cloud his appeal in whatever way they can, even dangerously and irresponsibly.

The backlash has begun against them, however, because their claims don't hold water. Already, the second highest ranking Democrat in the House has admitted that Congress received substantially the same generic warnings that the White House did prior to Sept. 11. And news organizations are uncovering similar reports to Congress and former President Clinton that warned about hypothetical al Qaida attacks.

Clearly, if Bush is to blame, then so is Congress and previous administrations. Such ugly finger pointing now, however, does nothing to prevent future attacks, and it distorts who the true villains in this war are: the terrorists.

Unfortunately Gephardt, Clinton and Daschle seem more than willing to change the focus in hopes of creating enough smoke around the attacks that some people not paying attention will blame the president. Their ploy is cynical, irresponsible and reprehensible.

It's stupid, too. For example, recent disclosures - held up as somehow negative to Bush by his critics - actually indicate the White House was creating a plan pre-9/11 to neutralize Osama bin Laden. And what were Daschle, Clinton and Gephardt doing at the same time with the same data available to them? They were calling for cuts in America's intelligence operations.

In fact, the flurry of news coverage around the Democrats' charges has been reassuring in at least two ways. First, much of the media has put their charges in context, exposing the political motives. Second, the intelligence leaks have made clear that the government was not totally blind about the attacks - no matter how unconscionable the attacks were. The government had obscure but available data; it just didn't connect the dots. This suggests that if we get our act together, as President Bush is forcing upon the federal bureaucracy, we can prevent future terrorism.

To do that will take our leaders working together, not tearing each other apart. Attention Washington: Let's not play the blame game.

Jon K. Rust is co-president of Rust Communications.