ìCongress Plans Special Hearings On Sept. 11 Panel: Rare Meetings in August; Commission Says It Plans to Pressure Officials to Act on Findings,î by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Philip Shenon, New York Times, 24 July, p. A1.

ìSlow Change Is Expected After Report,î by David Johnston, NYT, 24 July, p. A8.

ìWhy America is Still An Easy Target,î [book excerpt] from Stephen Flynn, America the Vulnerable, Time, 26 July, p. 38.

Congress will want to seem responsive to the Commission report, so weíll be treated to some showy hearings in August that demonstrate how serious everyone on the Hill is regarding the reshaping of the intell community that MUST be done. Why? Because itís an election year and because everyone will want to make sure theyíre not on the hook for the next attack, whenever that comes. As I wrote in PNM, ìDoesnít it seem weird that the same senators who prattle on during Sunday news programs about how the world is a chaotic, unpredictable place still always seem to show up on C-SPAN following some security disaster to decry yet another ëintelligence failureí? Who are these people kidding?î

Theyíre kidding us, of course, and we accept it because itís what we want to hearóthat the next 9/11 can be prevented by inventing a new office or two inside the White House.

ìIf only an intelligence czar could have pieced together all the information weíve examined over the past year and instantly figured out 9/11 on 9/10, then it never would have happened!î

Remember folks, these guys were the same ones who promised to eliminate the federal debt within a decade or so. We believe because we want to believe.

The only game that matters is the away game, not the home game, because whatís broken in this world is not us, but themónot the Core but the Gap. But addressing the latter is much harder than band-aiding the former. No one will get unelected for not dealing with the roots of terror, but those same ìbumsî may well get tossed out for not preventing the next 9/11.

So we will continue to pay what Peter Schwartz likes to call the ìbin Laden tax.î Why? Because itís largely spending on ourselves instead of those who really need it in the Gap. Which, frankly, is why a Stephen Flynn is such a darling of the national security crowd. He wants to make America safe and wants to spend all available GWOT money on America itself, not the Gap whatsoever. So his sort of fear-mongering is very acceptable: ìLook at all our connectivity with the outside world! Look at how unmonitored it is! Be afraid! Search everything! Monitor everything!î

This sort of inward-looking approach is essentially our strategic abandoning of globalizationóto the extent we actually engage in this sort of thing. The return-on-investment in firewalling the Core is far less than shrinking the Gap by exporting security there. Yes, some belt-tightening makes a lot of sense, but when you see the center of the fear-selling being our border with the outside world and our inability to predict the future, you should be very afraid, for most of this effort will be completely wasted and send the worst sort of signals to the Gap: ìweíve got ours and weíll do whatever it takes to protect it!î

Isnít that just what President Arroyo of the Philippines said?