Ready, aim, ....

An update to this item from Thursday, wondering why John Ashcroft is not being charged with lying under oath.

I mentioned that he had in effect blamed commission member Jamie Gorelick for terrorist attacks because of guidance she gave federal agents on how to avoid forestalling potential prosecutions by wrongfully turning what were supposed to be intelligence investigations into criminal ones. I also mentioned how she'd been attacked on the same basis on the same day in an article on National Review Online.

It with that in mind that you should read this.

Washington (CNN, April 17) - Jamie Gorelick, a member of the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, said Saturday that she received death threats this week after a number of conservatives alleged that her former work in the Justice Department may have contributed to failures leading to the attacks. ...

"I can confirm that I've received threats at my office and my home," she told CNN on Saturday. "I did get a bomb threat to my home."

As part of the reactionary offensive, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Outer Space) demanded she resign.

"Gorelick has an inherent conflict of interest as the author of this memo and as a government official at the center of the events in questions," Sensenbrenner said in a written statement.

Now, if you really think all this is about a professional conflict of interest, you go have a nice lie-down and stop reading this mean old blog which only gives you headaches.

For the rest of us, I think this clearly indicates that the 9/11 Commission's report, due in July, is not going to be kind to the White House and they know it. Yes, I know I've said the report will blame "the system" and I still maintain that: There will be "blame enough for all" to the point where no one actually gets blamed for anything. But in the course of that, the report could include many examples, a number of which might be embarrassing to the Clinton people - but unlike the Bushites, they aren't running for re-elec- well, for election. And based on what the Commission staff has already released, Shrub and the Shrubberies have good cause to be worried about how they'll look, even in the absence of direct blame.

So what we have here, I believe, is the first salvo in an attempt to paint the Commission and thus its report as the result of partisan sniping, driven by attempts by Clinton-era members to cover their tracks. If I'm right, the fire will increase and probably spread to more targets, such as Bob Kerrey, who already had a couple of skirmishers take aim at him, griping about his being in the media "so much."

Pre-emptive strikes, after all, need not be limited to countries.

Footnote added later: Gorelick defends herself in a piece in Sunday's Washington Post.