The 9/11 Panel: It made for riveting radio, yesterday. I wonder how much TV would add. (I don't have C-Span.) Not much, I figure. I was one of the cynics who thought that the Republican members would roast Bill Cohen, while the Dems would skewer Rummy. Likewise Maddy Albright and Colin Powell. The whole thing is pretty darn collegial, though (with the exception of that shrill shill, Jamie Gorelick, who thinks she's trying Leopold and Loeb).

I'll stop short of some teary-eyed, road to Damascus realization of how wonderfully effective government is, and what forthright and upstanding people these former senators and governors are -- although I confess a bit of a hetero crush on Bob Kerrey, even if he did shiv some unarmed old VC bastard in 'Nam.

More: Speaking of Kerrey, here's a great line from the Socialists (at WSWS) on his appointment to the panel, titled "War criminal to probe mass murder":

In a change of personnel that signals a further tightening of the Bush administration’s reins on the supposedly independent probe into what happened on September 11, 2001, former Nebraska Senator Robert Kerrey was tapped Tuesday to sit on the 10-member panel investigating the terrorist attacks.

Got it? The appointment of Kerrey signifies that the Bush administration is tightening its reins on the investigation. Now, read it again and keep it in mind for half a second (WSWS is betting your pea-sized brain can't hold onto it). The story goes on to detail Kerrey's brimful-with-atrocities Vietnam closet and notes that Calley, er, Kerrey has forign policy views disturbingly similar to George Bush's! Then (and here you'll want to be remembering that previous passage) a paragraph near the end of the story says,

The selection of Kerrey was made not by Bush, it should be pointed out, but rather by the Senate minority leader, Thomas Daschle (Democrat of South Dakota).

Golly, boys, what just happened to the point of your f*cking story?