Readers have flooded us with e-mails over our jaundiced postings on the 9/11 hearings and especially with respect to the Independent Women’s Forum’s petition for the creation of a truly nonpartisan 9/11 commission (see our home page for details). Some readers loved IWF President Nancy Pfotenhauer’s cucumber-cool rebuttal of amateur psychologist/Hillary-worshipper Gail Sheehy when the two went mano a mano on CNBC yesterday. Others think that we at the IWF are so right-wing that we don’t deserve to be called “women” anymore. So I’m presenting a slice of the good, the bad, and the ugly from our e-correspondence.
First, the good, from J.R.:
I had the pleasure of witnessing your president, Nancy Pfotenhauer, go one-on-one with Gail Sheehy tonight), and I say: well done. It is long past time that the partisan antics of the 9/11 commission be exposed, and I am pleased to see IWF fully engaged. Ms. Pfotenhauer definitely has presence. I hope that IWF will join with other organizations and individuals in demanding that commission member Jamie Gorelick resign her position due to her conflict of interest as revealed by Attorney General John Ashcroft in his testimony this week. As Ms. Gorelick played an integral role in the policy making that inhibited the sharing of intelligence data while she was deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration, she has no business now sitting in a position where she is able to judge those policies she put in place.”
And from M.G.:
“I agree that the 9/11 commission is completely biased and politcal. I am from New Jersey and also agree with Nancy that even though the libs like to say that the chairman is a Republican, Tom Kean never acted much like a Republican when he was governor of my state. I wonder why it is that whenever a commission like this is formed, the Democrats are hard-left, mean spirited partisans. But the Republicans, even when appointed by a Republican president, are always wishy-washy ‘moderates’ who have as their only concern ‘acting nice and being fair.'”
C.M. writes:
“Who remembers the immediate aftermath of TWA 800’s crash near Long Island [in 1996]? I do….[Then-President Bill] Clinton immediately assigned Al Gore to head up an inquiry panel looking into making airline security better….The airlines CEOs and CFOs balked loudly at the idea of implementing them for fear of what the costs would do to their bottom lines. The report was never heard about again….I want to know why this wasn’t an issue and why Vice President Richard Cheney must testify in public but Clinton-Gore were given private meetings?….It is an election year ploy to discredit the only man who has provided real leadership since Ronald Reagan!
Now for the bad, from L.G.:
“If there was wrongdoing on the part of our elected officials, which I personally think not, but on the off chance that I’m wrong, I want to know. I want my future built on truths, I want people held accountable for wrongdoings.”
And, of course, the ugly, from S.K.:
“How dare you call yourselves ‘independent!’ Your website is so blatantly conservative that there should be some way to prosecute the leaders of your organization for false advertising! Independent, my hiney! Your bellowing about the supposed partisanship shown by members of the 9/11 commission is just that–just like criminals who get caught in the act and yell that they’ve been framed! All I’ve seen while watching broadcasts of the 9/11 commission is Republicans giving non-answers to questions posed to them!…January 2005 will see a change in administration, girls, and this time the people in power will be the party of the people–the Democrats.”
Criminals–nous? I think that label more properly belongs to the 9/11 mastermind who’s now trying to wreak extortion on the French and Germans (who now are showing a little spine for once, unlike our friends in Spain). But I’ll leave it up to our readers to decide this one: Who’s worse, Osama bin Laden or the IWF?