THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

WHILE EXCUSING ALL THE FAILURES, WHOM DO WE REWARD? | 2002-06-01

There has recently been a big to-do over one memo where a security man predicted that the Arabs training at flight schools in the United States might grab planes and use them to attack targets in the USA.

Everybody is arguing about whether that one memo of the thousands going up the security chain should have been recognized for its importance. Let me ask an entirely different question.

Do you think that the guy who wrote that memo will take the place of any of the higher ups who slept through reading it?

Nobody else is going to ask that.

All these security chest-beaters have said the Senator Torrecellis have ruined American security. Did you hear a single one of those people going on news shows and talking about this before September 11?

Of course not. They are big heroic patriots, but not patriotic enough to get out there and expose themselves that way.

I can personally testify to something you already know: There is nothing less rewarding in public service than being right when it counts. And as long as that is the case, I do wish people would stop blubbering over the deaths and injuries we are going to sustain, and the destruction of our children in schools.