Absolutely essential to make the right choice on Nov. 2

Today, the 9-11 Commission gave the Bush Administration failing grades on its handling of homeland security.

"We're frustrated, all of us — frustrated at the lack of urgency in addressing these various problems," said former commission chairman Thomas Kean, a Republican and former New Jersey governor.

Specifically, the panel gave the government an "F" on homeland security spending for cities most at risk, on improving radio communication for emergency agencies and on airline passenger prescreening. They awarded only one A — actually an A-minus — for the administration's efforts to curb terrorist financing.

"We shouldn't need another wake-up call," Kean said. "We believe that the terrorists will strike again, so does every responsible expert that we have talked to. And if they do, and these reforms that might have prevented such an attack have not been implemented, what will our excuse be?"

Crooks and Liars appropriately points out that just before the last election, Vice President Cheney made the following comments:

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told supporters at a town-hall meeting Tuesday. "And then we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us."

Gives you a real comfort level to have these stand-up guys, Cheney and Bush, protecting us, doesn't it?