Terror alerts, terror threats, terror among us, terror without us, terror around us, terror, terror, terror.

Headline from today’s Meet The Press: Terror is a word worn-out from over and inaccurate use; in a word, terror, and all the attached isms have become a bore.
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The implications, such as they may be, of the arrests in London of a group said to be planning coordinated attacks on multiple airlines on route to the good old USofA was used as the frame for the entire hour.

Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff provided an amiable stone wall, and David Gregory brought little energy to the task of chipping away at it. Not that Chertoff wasn’t full of information; he was, but there was nothing new or interesting about his information, and supplying information was of less importance than supplying talking points.

An example: Chertoff isn’t concerned with the politics of this event, and thus wouldn’t comment on VP Cheney’s comment quoted by Gregory, to wit, that Ned Lamont’s win over Senator Lieberman could give encouragement to the Al Queda types, whose plans the British so recently broke up; meanwhile, in the same answer, Chertoff wasn’t bashful about pointing out the importance of unity of message going out to the “the terrorists,” the need for bipartisan unity.

Gregory wanted to know what had worked here. The non-political Chertoff managed, during the course of several long answers, not to mention good police work, good intel from the Muslim community within England, or good follow-through by police, working with British security services in strict, successful surveilance of suspected participants, which allowed for the development of first-rate intelligence. You know, what we didn’t do with so-called trained Al Queda operative, Jose Padillo, when he returned from Pakistan to Chicago, and we not only picked him up, but Ashcroft made a special point of announcing the arrest.

Instead, Chertoff emphasized the deep relationship between us and the Brits, their trust in us, our ability not to leak; he emphasized that, as if any newspaper would print a leak about an on-going investigation into a specific developing terrorist threat.

Why had the Bush administration redirected half of what had been allotted for research and development of ways to detect liquid explosives to training screeners? Priorities, said Chertoff. Chertoff thinks we have to know more about who is flying; don’t know what he meant by that, but I think most Americans would rather have that money spent on detection of the actual chemical threat; if we could do that, mistakes of interpretation would be less likely, and air travel a good deal less stressful, not to mention you could bring your eye drops with you onto the plane.

Oh well.

Next, Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton, the two Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, out with a new book about what went on behind the scenes.

They also wished not to be political, and managed not to be. Still, it was clear that both felt “we,” i.e, the Bush administration, is behind where they should be in protecting the homeland, this far out from 9/11.

The fact that Al Queda was known to be interested in blowing up multiple airlines did come up; Ramzi Yousef tried it, using liquid explosives.

Most important statement came from Hamilton, though it was clear Kean agreed; what this episode tells us is that radicalization of Muslims around the world has accelerated since 9/11.

“And we have to understand, I believe, that if you’re really going to make the American people safe, it’s not just a question of taking different procedures on airplanes, it is dealing with the fundamental problem of the radicalization of Muslims in the world today.”

Karl Rove calls that, and will again, wanting to treat terrorists with therapy.

Kean agreed that radicalization has gotten worse; he declined to be critical of the decision to invade Iraq, nor would he offer any thoughts on what is to be done there now. But he did make this statement

I think because there are a whole bunch of things happening in the world which has tended to make Muslims dislike the United States more than they even did before. After 9/11, there was world sympathy that came to us. Since then, the war in Iraq, our support Israel, which is constant, and plus, as Lee said, these people are not getting any better off. I mean, these people still don’t have jobs, they’re still poor, they still don’t have any future, they don’t have any hope.

A different take on “root causes” here.

Hamilton made a particularly good point; while not taking a position on Iraq, or on Bush notions of democratizing the Middle East by military means, that good policy has to be based on a realistic awareness that actions have consequences; in Iraq, whatever you think of the policy, what can’t be denied is that our last three years there has increased hostility to this country among Muslims around the world.

It was around here, that Hamilton made the only reference to the situation in Lebanon during the entire hour:

That doesn’t make American foreign policy wrong, it just means that it has a lot of consequences to it that keep flowing. If you kill hundreds and hundreds of people in Lebanon, that has consequences. And the consequences are that you further radicalize a lot of people. You have to deal with that by doing the kind of things that Tom suggested, reaching out to the Muslim world.

As for homeland security, both Kean and Hamilton gave examples of the slowness of response in making us safer; for Kean, no unified watch lists at the airport, which would make screening much easier, of course, and a lack of “puffer” machines, in airports to detect traces of explosives.

To this Hamilton added:

It’s an amazing thing, five years after this event that we’re still straggling with the whole question of developing detection devices for all kinds of explosives. Five years after this event. And the secretary a moment ago spoke about pilot programs. Pilot programs, five years after the event.

(all quotes are my transcript and probably not word for word)

David Gregory was also resolutely resolute about avoiding any discussion that might be called “political,” even passing up an opportunity, when Chertoff emphasized the close coordination that went on with the Brits, to ask Secretary Chertoff about reports, one of them by NBC’s Lisa Myers, I believe, that the British had wanted to carry their surveillance on for a few more days, before closing in, and that they deferred to Washington’s insistence that the plot be made public when it was.

I guess he wished to keep all discussions of the politics of terror for his final two guests, Howard Dean, speaking for Democrats, and Ken Melhman, for Republicans.

Dean was good, I thought, refusing to let Gregory’s framing of the questions continue to paint Democrats as having been taken over by some radical left liberalism embodied by Ned Lamont.

Again and again, Dean went back to the list of administration failures around the world - Iraq, North Korea, failure to catch Osama, Afghanistan, and its resurgent Taliban. Dean refused to rough up Lieberman, which was good, a way of not becoming defensive, at the same time that Lieberman’s attempts to link Lamont and the would-be London bombers were excoriated by Dean.

Are Democrats open to various points of view about “the war,” which one wasn’t clear, though Gregory seemed to mean Iraq. Dean was effective in pointing out how thin was this accusation - Democrats voted for a resolution that has no date certain for leaving Iraq - and he managed to insist that what did Lieberman in with the voters in the primary was his insistence on embracing too closely the Bush administration, at a time when voters want change. Dean’s best moment, when he pointed out that Lieberman’s statements since his loss in the primary have been photocopies of those by Cheney and Ken Mehlman.

Ken Mehlman was ushered on after Dean, and asked to comment on Dean’s comments. Ken was ready.

He disagreed on two points at first; Dean’s saying that Iraq was, in fact, a distraction from the War on Terror, to which Mehlman countered that it is “the terrorists” themselves who say that Iraq is the frontline in their own struggle, i.e., Osama himself says that it is his goal to drive us out of Iraq; guess we’re stuck there forever in that case, or until the Bush administration gets hold of Bin Ladin.

The second point upon which Mehlman disagreed with Dean was on Dean’s assertion that Democrats are just as committed to America being strong as are Republicans. Then why, Mehlman wanted to know, did Democrats vote against the Patriot Act, which they didn’t, of course, and only later, after some bad practices, often wasteful ones, came to light, wished to alter it; why then, Ken asked, are they against surveillance programs, ones similar to what worked in London; of course Democrats aren’t, only to the Bush administration’s penchant for ignoring the constitution, and there is no indication that illegal surveillance was the key to last week’s British success: why are Democrats against missile defense, surely a key component in the birth of a new Middle East.

Well, it went on like that.

One thing about these guys - they are all one trick ponies; my suggestion, if you’re interested, take time to look at the transcript of this program, just the last part, with Mehlman - he laid out all the talking points and the lies upon which they are based that will be used between now and November; starting writing those letters to the editor now.

We can beat these jokers, damnit, just don’t think it’s going to be as easy as it should be, not with “the press” we keep meeting every damn Sunday.