Kerry's duty is/was to review all theories of special agents who fail to convince their own agency they work for of a potential problems, to review all documents personally from every single agent and have expertise as to the validity of the documents provided and the theories from agents who failed to convince their own superiors who have expertise in that area that the problem needs to be addressed in the way the agent desires, and to do this review of every single agent of every single agency and then act on these requests immediately without question in favor of the agent's wishes? You are insane if you actually believe this.
So perhaps you made an incorrect assumption as to what I was saying, as you pulled a quote out of context of a post and out of context of a thread. Now that you know you are wrong in your interpretation, what is the problem? If anyone reads the individual post in context of the thread, where I was making the point that the responsibility for airport security was on the FAA and the DOT.....BECAUSE THE AIRPORT IS UNDER THEIR JURISDICTION.....not Kerry's responsibility, for me to suddenly reverse my line of thinking and state that the FAA and the DOT were not responsible for or had no jurisdiction for the Logan airport, they would be not thinking clearly, or not following the line of discussion properly. Or maybe they were just looking to make a point that was not really there to advance their personal agenda, who knows? I suspect that rather than ask for clarification, you siezed on some foolish attempt to make some case that wasn't even there. Sheesh!
No, in the minimum CYA, Kerry was an idiot for not acting when some of the documentation was produced by a news organization. Other than that, Bin Laden was not a secret to a Senator that prides himself on international affairs. He's been on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for many years. The airport was in his domain. The security was being breached in tests 90% of the time. Pass it along to the DOT?
You'd have been better off to simply admit that you were not very clear rather than drawing ridiculous diagrams. It was patently obvious, but if you wish to write in such an ambiguous fashion and refuse to admit it, then you are going to be taken literally.
So Kerry was more of an expert on airport security and potential terroist threats than Sullivan's superiors at the FAA such that he should dismiss their evaluation? Nope, don't think so. He passed it on for further review to the cabinet that has the expertise and authority.
Well, let's test your knowledge. You're informed that the FAA/DOT isn't doing anything about lax airport security. The exact wording you receive is, "The DOT OIG has become an ineffective overseer of the FAA..." You're notified that there is a 90% failure rate for weapons being brought aboard commercial aircraft. Aircraft whose primary security threat is from mostly Muslim Fundamentalists. This 90% security failure is occurring at the major airport in your home state. They give you a tape produced by a local Boston news organization that documents it. Gosh, what do you think you should do? Should you forward the tape to the DOT OIG? That's what Kerry did... and that's all he did. Then after that, he was warned that if Kerry didn't act soon he'd risk the lives of planeloads of his constituents. Don't forget, Kerry is now running around boasting how he "sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9/11," referring to his 1997 book, "The New War."
You form your opinions based on the facts as you see them, I form mine on the facts as I see them. We don't agree on our conclusions. You hold Kerry to an unreasonable standard in my opinon in this case. Security was lax all over the United States, the special agent could have convinced other special agents of the impending doom, and they could have gone to their senators in their states, etc.. You are just fishing for something that isn't there, which is what people who hate Bush, or hate Kerry do. Blame the FAA, blame the DOT, but blaming Kerry in this case is ludicrous.
Unreasonable standard? For a local police chief perhaps, but this is a powerful US Senator who for a decade served as chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, but also "sounded the alarm" on terrorism "way before 9/11." Kerry stated in 1997: "It will take only one mega-terrorist event in any of the great cities of the world to change the world in a single day..." An unreasonable standard? Hardly. Thanks, Senator.
Your opinion of what is reasonable for a senator is lacking in both foundation, precedent, and common sense. No reasonable person blames Bush for the failure of the intelligence agencies to have discovered the terrorist threat...the blame goes to those experts who were charged with the responsibility of the intelligence. No reasonable person is going to charge Kerry with the job of evaluation specific threats either. This man Sullivan, who claims expertise, was ignored by his own department. What does that say about him? So a shunned and ignored agent, nearing retirement, perhaps a doddering old fool, can't find anyone to listen to him, and goes to Kerry and asks for his help. Kerry reviews the documents and data (perhaps personally, or maybe from his staff's side) and sees a gloom and doom scenario painted based on the his analysis of a 90% (his analysis only, not an independent study) failure rate. Okay, what was Kerry supposed to do? Was he supposed to call the FBI? The CIA? Bush? The head of the FAA, the head of the DOT, the New York Times, etc.? Tell his fellow senators of the danger? They didn't listen to him in 1997, why should they listen now? No, he acted in a reasonable and prudent matter by not rejecting the data, but rather going through the proper channels, knowing that since he approved of the data enough to submit it to the DOT that it might just carry more weight this time around that it was rubber stamped by a "powerful" senator. The fact that a terrorist attack happened 4 months later is irrelevant to the procedures he followed. I simply reject your belief system and resultant conclusions as lacking sufficient evidence to support the conclusion reached. A powerful U.S. senator is often the least informed on the specifics, as they are making policy, not exacting the details. No one in their right mind would expect them to be on the same level of detail as an expert in the field of threat analysis to the degree that Sullivan and those in the FAA and DOT who rejected Sullivan's theories were. Kerry was correct in his analysis in 1997, and he was right to admit his lack of expertise and hand the information off to the experts in the DOT. You are fishing in an empty barrel with a empty net. However, if you want agreement with your theory, post on the Rush Limbaugh web site. They will agree with anything that bashes the opposition.