REPORTING ON TERRORISM BEFORE 9/11 comes in for criticism.

DAVID WARREN: “No matter who is President after November, it appears the U.S. and Iran are now on course for another history-making collision.”

MATTHEW CONTINETTI ASKS: “Are these journalists going to fall on their swords for politics? . . . Is Wilson saying that Kristof published something different from what he told him? It’s quite a charge.” And it’s one you’d think people would answer.

MORE ON HELEN CLARK’S ANTISEMITISM IN NEW ZEALAND, from Ted Lapkin in The Australian.

“MUGGED BY VIACOM:” John Lehman expresses his dissatisfaction with the 9/11 Commission’s process. (Via Ed Morrissey).

BUSH’S STRATEGERY: Steven Den Beste and Gerard van der Leun offer their takes. Are they right? Beats me, but they’re interesting.

CARNIVAL OF THE LIBERATED: Soundfury’s roundup of Iraqi blogs is up.

Al-Hurra needs to get over its problems.

A BUSH-TWINS CAPTION CONTEST and much, much more — all over at InstaPunk. Where the blog name is derivative, but the blog content isn’t!

STICKY FINGERS: The funniest Sandy Berger photoshop yet.

READER ROB WILES EMAILS:

I tuned in to the NBC nightly news just to see what sort of misleading spin would be offered on the latest developments in the Berger situation.

Lo and behold, he didn’t even mention it.

I guess that’s how it is. I never thought the media bias that is SO obvious was THAT blatant and widespread.

Just thought you might like to know.

I didn’t watch Brokaw tonight, but I’m not surprised. Though it seems to me that the media folks are doing long-term damage to their position for short-term political gains.

HOW TO BECOME A LAW PROFESSOR: Orin Kerr has some links to useful information for those who may be interested.

A LOST AND FOUND NOTE FROM THE GEORGETOWN STARBUCKS — I hope the poor guy finds those lost papers. . . .

HERE’S A LINK TO A SEARCHABLE VERSION of the 9/11 Commission report.

TOM MAGUIRE FINDS A NOT-SO-CRYPTIC REFERENCE TO SANDY BERGER in the 9/11 Commission report:

How about that? How many times have we heard Clinton say that he missed Bin Ladin by just a few hours? Yet the after-action report is missing, so the Commission relied on Sandy Berger’s testimony.

My guess is that someone would have asked about that, and once on the subject of Berger and missing after-action reports, the story of the criminal investigation could hardly be kept quiet. Hence, a pre-emptive leak by someone close to the commission to avoid distraction. . . .

Well, I’ll know I am on to something if I don’t see it in the Times tomorrow.

(Emphasis added.) Go there, and follow the links. This just may answer some important questions about what Berger was up to, and why the leak happened when it did.

THE 9/11 COMMISSION BOTTOM LINE: “We believe we are safer. But we are not safe.” Ed Morrissey has more.

“REYNOLDS SHAMED:” I’m being seriously dissed by Andrew Stuttaford. Next he’ll be questioning my patriotism! Those right-wing smear artists will stop at nothing, you know.

AN OBLIQUE REFERENCE TO SANDY BERGER? A reader sends this passage from page xvii of the 9/11 Commission Report:

We have not interviewed every knowledgeable person or found every relevant piece of paper.

Heh. More interesting stuff here.

UPDATE: On Berger, reader Kyle Kveton emails:

Let’s leave aside who leaked, why it leaked, or even whether all he took were copies. He has said he “believes” the documents he didn’t return were “inadvertently destroyed.” What if the “loveably sloppy” former NSA didn’t destroy them? What if they’re still around–out there somewhere? What assurances can he give us that those highest level classified documents haven’t been taken by someone else? Where did he leave them? Were they in his “sloppy office” where a cleaning crew could pick them up? Did he even try to secure them after they were removed from the archives? Let’s ask Berger and his lawyers to answer those questions.

I wish somebody would.

PHOTOBLOGGING THE CONVENTIONS: The ExposureManager folks have set up a special free site for bloggers covering the political conventions to make photoblogging easier.

I hope that a lot of the bloggers there will post photos — and maybe even video — of what’s going on, along with their reports.

JEFF JARVIS WILL BE ON CNN TONIGHT, talking about how we’ve changed since 9/11.

HEH: Google, circa 1960.

RAND SIMBERG is answering Mickey Kaus’s questions about the Berger document-theft scandal and classification.

TOM MAGUIRE JOINS THE CROWD razzing The New York Times for its miserable and dishonest coverage of the Sandy Berger document-theft scandal. (More here, too.)

I got an email from a journalist asking me to assess Bill Keller’s Times so far. I’d say the answer is — not really any better than under Howell Raines.

THE FAILURE OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION: Ryan Boots asks, “what did the Commission tell us that we didn’t already know?”

And here’s what he wants to know:

-What has changed in airline safety since 9/11?

-Are we still frisking grandmothers and six-year-olds and letting Mohammed Atta-lookalikes cruise through metal detectors? If so, why?

-How well is the Patriot Act really working? Is it preventing terrorism? Is it helping track down al-Qaeda cells? What aspects of the Patriot Act work, and what portions of it don’t?

-What is being done to protect industrial infrastructure, such as nuclear plants and sources of water?

-What has been done to strengthen border security? (snicker)

-Have the immigration loopholes exploited by the 9/11 hijackers been closed? If not, why not?

I haven’t perused the report yet, but I don’t think it answers these questions. And I agree that they matter.

RELIGION CRUSHING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: Virginia Postrel has a frightening tale.

UPDATE: Where’s the religion, here? It’s the “religion” of animal rights in Britain, a comparison that Virginia makes quite explicitly. A lot of readers seem to be missing that, though.

ONE SUSPECTS THAT MOST BIG MEDIA OUTLETS, already none-too-eager to cover the Sandy Berger Trousergate fiasco, will use the release of the 9/11 Commission report as an excuse to ignore it.

If I were Karl Rove, I’d encourage Republicans to counter this by prefacing all comments on the report with something like this: “In light of the ongoing criminal investigation involving charges that former Kerry foreign policy adviser Sandy Berger stole top secret documents from Commission files, we can’t be sure that the Commission had all the facts at its disposal, but. . . ”

But I’m not Karl Rove.

UPDATE: Rove may want to follow my advice, though. Reader Robert Jacoby emails:

Here are the top stories on my (customized) yahoo news page, all AP stories:

1) 9/11 Panel Suggests Intelligence Overhaul
2) Video Shows 9/11 Hijackers’ Security Check
3) U.S. Reports 94 Cases of Prisoner Abuse
4) House Takes Up Gay Marriage Issue Again
5) Marines Kill 25 Insurgents in Ramadi
6) Threatening Note Found on Amtrak Train
and

7) ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Making GOP Nervous

I’ll spare you the rest of the headlines. Not one of the 20 stories on that page says anything about Berger. Now it makes sense for most of the stories to be there, but why the Michael Moore story and not the Berger story? That has much deeper implications that a movie. I get similar results for my customized Netscape page, including the Moore story. Not only are the news outlets ignoring Bergergate, they are in its place pushing anti-Bush stories.

I guess Evan Thomas was right.

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner says that my advice to Karl Rove is terrible. Good thing I’m not Karl Rove!