President Bush Testifies Before the 9-11 Commission

President Bush and Vice President Cheney testified before a closed-door session of the September 11 Commission yesterday. By prior agreement between the White House and the Commission, the content of yesterday’s meeting was not released to the public. What did become public, however, is that the session went at least forty minutes longer than planned- a clear concession by the President and the Vice President to what was described by leftist partisans on the Commission as an urgent need to spend as much time as possible with them.

For weeks, Democrats on and off the Commission criticized the initial White House offer of time-limited testimony by the President and Vice President as insufficient to meet the needs of the Commission and the American people. This criticism was nothing more than crass partisanship, as demonstrated by Bob Kerrey and Lee Hamilton, both Democrat members of the Commission, who left long before yesterday’s testimony ended. More important for Kerrey than listening to the President’s testimony was a scheduled meeting with Senator Pete Domenici. For Hamilton, it was more important to introduce the Prime Minister of Canada (our appeasement minded neighbor) to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Prior to their testimony, the “Hate Bush” crowd argued that the President insisted on testifying with the Vice President out of a need for coaching. The Washington Times this morning reported that during his testimony, “…Mr. Bush never consulted with Mr. Cheney or White House Counsel Albert Gonzales before answering a question.” This was not good enough for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who after the fact still insisted, "The whole process would have been better served if the president had gone in alone and the vice president had gone in alone. It really begs the question of why they had to go in hand in hand…”

Had Bush and Cheney testified separately, partisans on and off the Commission (Pelosi amongst them) would have seized the opportunity to allege differences between their statements to generate additional avenues for inquiry, and more importantly headlines questioning the administration’s credibility. By testifying with Cheney, the President gave the “Hate Bush” crowd fuel to argue that he is not sharp enough to testify on his own, but he also deprived Democrats of an opportunity for future partisan attacks.

It is a shame that Pelosi and her fellow Democrats do not understand the damage their ruthless partisanship does to the Commission’s work. After yesterday’s testimony, Pelosi said not a word about Kerry and Hamilton leaving early, what she described as “… this very important commission meeting which is so important to the American people.” She chose instead to recycle insinuations that Bush is not up to the job.