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Presidency: What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?

by Leonard Steinhorn

Mr. Steinhorn, professor of communications at American University, is co-author of the book, By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and The Reality of Race (Dutton, 1999). He is a member of the board of HNN.

"What did he know, and when did he know it?"
That central question in Watergate should be reverberating throughout
America today amid the continuing revelations that President Bush and
his administration knew more about Osama bin Laden's terrorist plans
than the President ever has acknowledged.
It's taken months for this news to come out, but we now know that the
CIA warned the President specifically about the potential for an al
Qaeda hijacking. We also know about FBI memos expressing concern over
terrorist use of American flight training schools. Is there more to
come?
This is a president who has shamelessly used September 11 to his
political advantage -- his advisor, Karl Rove, stated that Republicans
should run on September 11, and most recently the President has been
selling wealthy GOP donors photos of his conversations with the Vice
President that day. Rather than riding the popularity wave from
September 11, shouldn't the president -- who said he would do things
differently in Washington -- have leveled with the American people and
disclosed this information long ago?
We've grown accustomed to thinking of Washington scandals only in terms
of sex, cover-ups, dirty deeds and lying to the public. But let's assume
further revelations come out that the president could have done more to
prevent this tragedy. Shouldn't that rise to the level of scandal -- a
scandal of failed leadership, of incompetence, with historical
ramifications? Wouldn't the consequences of Bush's inaction dwarf
anything President Clinton did in the Oval Office?
Only 11 days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President
Roosevelt issued an executive order establishing a commission"to
ascertain and report the facts relating to the attack," and he named
Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts to head it. Soon after World War II
ended, Congress likewise created a Joint Committee on the Investigation
of the Pearl Harbor Attack. Both reports absolved the Roosevelt
administration but singled out naval commanders in Hawaii for failing to
heed a war warning from Washington, though in the congressional document
two Republican senators filed a blistering minority report criticizing
the Roosevelt administration.
President Bush has often compared September 11 with Pearl Harbor. But
for some reason he initially resisted the creation of a joint
congressional committee to look into September 11. Congress went ahead
anyway, and now the committee is poised to investigate.
As a nation our emotions remain raw, and we may not be ready for any
investigation of what the president and his advisors knew before
September 11. But as a constitutional democracy, we deserve answers.
Once again, we must ask:"What did he know and when did he know it?"