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Scandalous

36 comments on Scandalous

Scandalous

: The politicizing and grand-standing of the 9/11 Commission does not end. Just now John Lehman launched a totally uncalled-for attack on New York’s police and fire officials, saying their command and control was “scandalous” and not good enough for the Boy Scouts.

How dare he?

This was not only disrespectful to the work of many heroes it was said for effect and publicity. If Lehman truly cared about getting to ways to make things better, he would not have said it this way. But he did.

The former police and fire bosses being questioned gave him restrained what-for (I would have given him the finger). Thomas Van Essen said that the kind of statement Lehman just made is the essence of the problem people have with this commission.

Amen.

: Getaloada the self-puffery on JohnFLehman.com:

John F. Lehman, the youngest and most controversial Secretary of the Navy who built the six hundred ship Navy during the Reagan administration, speaks with authority and candor on a variety of subjects which shape contemporary thought.

The ego that launched 600 ships.

36 responses to “Scandalous”

  1. ken Avatar
    ken

    I wish I could I say I was surprised. But really I’m not.
    What do these people want, aside from camera time? Is there any group of humans alive who could have done things differently? Even in a bizarro world where the police and firemen trained DAILY for the occurrence of two passenger planes slamming into the city’s two tallest buildings, could they have done any better? Highly unlikely.
    Some of these folks went up those stairs thinking they were just doing their job and they’d get through it and, in the end, didn’t. Some of them went up those stairs knowing damn well they’d never make it out alive and, in the end, they didn’t. Now people like Lehman–by the way where the hell was he on 9/11–want to paint these people with the scandal brush?
    I’m quite sure both the Fire and Police Departments, especially after losing so many of their own, know down to the last detail exactly what went wrong and what they could have done better. I’m sure plenty of them lose sleep at night thinking “If only” this and “We should have tried” that.

  2. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    To expand on Ken’s point. Any sort of communication breakdown or troubles has no doubt been identified and reconciled throughout New York City’s bravest and finest. As Ken stated, I’m sure they go through those events in their mind every single day.
    They didn’t need some political hack commission member to come in and yell at them like parents would a spoiled child. How does this grandstanding help matters anyway? This commission grows more idiotic and worthless by the day.

  3. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    I guess this is payback for the grandstanding Kerrey and BenVeniste did when the commission was in DC – what goes around, comes around.

  4. Dimmy Karras Avatar
    Dimmy Karras

    Well, obviosuly some things went wrong on 9/11. Someone needs to probe into those things without being accused of defiling the memories of those who died. This work requires a delicate touch that some on the commission may lack.

  5. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    We curently have 294 ships, less than half of what Lehman “built”. We are seeking to increase that to 375 ships.
    BTW, why is your RSS feed presented as most recent posts last, instead of most recent posts first?

  6. gijoe Avatar
    gijoe

    dimmy, what would you have done?
    like any other kind of emergency response would have saved more people.

  7. chuck Avatar
    chuck

    I’ve been thinking that one of the virtues of the present situation is the number of prima donnas shaking out of the government. Lord, we can’t afford the luxury of these folks any more. But I suspect there are hundreds, if not thousands, more to go.

  8. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    The commission was formed as a political response. It’s product will be a political whack job. The hearings have been Political Theater as people jockey for position in the Kerry (or willit be Kerry-Kerrey?) Administration. The report will be released at/during the DNC in Boston.
    Things that need changing have already been changed. Errors, lapses, mistakes have been identified and corrected.
    The Commission is Political Theater best viewed by political junkies who believe that enough words will eventually produce as result. Politics is the art of the never-ending-conversation.

  9. tja Avatar
    tja

    Will we hear the same outrage now from Fox News commentators and Joe Scarborough(sp) that we heard when the grandstanding was on the other side? I doubt it.

  10. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Was the problem in the content of his comment, or the tone in which he delivered it?
    -Chris

  11. Andrea Harris Avatar
    Andrea Harris

    “John F. Lehman, the youngest and most controversial Secretary of the Navy who built the six hundred ship Navy during the Reagan administration…”
    So before Lehman came along, we didn’t have a Navy? Or — he built the Navy himself out of balsa wood and Ken dolls? Who the hell wrote that copy?

  12. Lost in Jersey City Avatar
    Lost in Jersey City

    I agree with Mike that the emergency responders continually review and improve their operating procedures. From what I know about my own fire department (which was on the mutual aid response on 9/11), training is never done.
    I don’t see what in this commission is helping them to do their jobs better in the future. The hand-wringing over the radio communications failure is a becoming a waste of time. There is no fool-proof system of communication in an emergency. Batteries die. Transmissions get stepped on. Information is relayed incorrectly. Humans err, but they do the best they can.
    Why is the 9/11 commission not talking about what the departments should do to evacuate on such a large scale? What can they do to transmit an order by all means available? How about sounding the evacuation tone by the rigs’ air horns? Not everyone would have heard, but some might have.
    It’s important to require accountability, but I don

  13. Thomas Avatar
    Thomas

    I watched the 9/11 Commissioners use up their precious time by speechifying and grandstanding, not only to the tv cameras, but to the various groups arrayed in the gallery as well. Each one spoke until they made sure they got some round of applause. Those called to testify barely spoke. All of the local NYC stations carried the hearings live. What a spectacular waste of their and our time.

  14. Diggs Avatar
    Diggs

    “Building” a 600 ship Navy during the Reagan era must have been as difficult as trying to find silicone in the Playboy Mansion.
    He takes credit for something that he was clearly directed to do by the President?
    What an ego!

  15. Charles Fenwick Avatar
    Charles Fenwick

    To comment on John Lehman, without necessarily commenting on what was said today:
    He was the best damn Secretary of the Navy of the modern era. In the late 70’s ships were failing to make deployments because of a lack of money and/or our ships being materially unready, etc. A plan existed to draw our aircraft carrier force down to two. Under Lehman’s watch, our Navy recovered and resurged. Definitely one of Reagan’s finest choices.
    No, we never reached a 600 ship navy (IIRC correctly we maxed at ~ 525), but the spirit behind the maxim was reached.
    I haven’t seen or read the events of today, but he did a good job on the day Dr Rice testified

    as written about on NRO.

  16. Yogi Berra Avatar
    Yogi Berra

    Considering Lehman is a hardcore Republican and rather adamant Bush supporter, it’s hard to say he is a) politicizing the proceedings and b) angling for a job in Kerry administration. Sorry, Jeffo, but you’re full of crap on this one. Maybe you need to consider that Lehman is telling what he considers to be the truth.

  17. Catherine Avatar
    Catherine

    I saw Lehman’s site a month ago and had the same – get a load of you – feeling.
    Anyway, stupid comment and the cops and firefighters have been complaining about their poor quality radios for years (a major problem on 9/11) and the city, state (NY STATE does squat for NYC – don’t get me started) have ignored it.

  18. ron Avatar
    ron

    The commentators on fox did say something about it this afternoon. I tuned out once i heard his speechifying so I didn’t catch wether pro or con.

  19. Newzilla Avatar
    Newzilla

    http://newzilla.com/NN0518044.htm
    THE 9/11 COMMISSION IS OUT OF ORDER (AGAIN)
    I couldn’t agree more … Jeff Jarvis calls it scandalous, speaking of the conduct of the 9/11 commission in charging after ex-police and fire chiefs from NYC.
    I have never witnessed a more pompous assemblage of overblown peacocks than sit on this arrogant commission.
    We need a commission to investigate the commission. I have no way of knowing whether or not their assertions have been correct … I do know that each one of them acts as if they’re Judge Judy on a caffeine high … Judy, Judy, Judy …. too much coffee? Why not politely investigate, spare us the theatrics, and prepare a nice little report that we can all learn from.
    What is the Commission’s mandate?
    The Commission’s mandate is to provide a

  20. David Hecht Avatar
    David Hecht

    Lehman has a bit of an ego, no doubt about it: what pol doesn’t? But I have to agree with Charles Fenwick: for all his problems, he pretty much single-handedly took the Navy out of its downward spiral and made it into the lean, mean fighting machine it is today.
    I was there: I worked at NAVAIR for 15 years starting in 1981.
    Lehman can’t take credit for all the programs: many of them were started before his watch. But he sure pulled a lot of them back from the brink: HARM, NAVSTAR, AEGIS, HARPOON, TOMAHAWK, /e tutti quanti/. Many of them were in a death spin, with rising costs and shoddy performance falling short of the design objective.
    He also was an “outside-the-box” thinker who came up with some nice little programs on his own watch: SKIPPER, SLAM, V-22 OSPREY, and a whole boatload (you’ll pardon the expression) of upgrades that didn’t make the papers so much, but sure added a lot of combat capability to the Navy.
    Unfortunately a few of his programs also crashed and burned rather spectacularly: A-12, P-7 and a few others. But that’s the price you pay for pushing the envelope: if you don’t crash and burn a few times, you’re not really testing the limits of the system.
    He also pushed–successfully–for competition on virtually every one of the Navy’s major systems, saving only God knows how many billions there.
    Having pushed hard for all this–and having gotten, IIRC, 585 ships out of 600 actually deployed, including 100 SSNs, 15 CVBGs and four BBBGs–he left the Navy in 1986, having served longer as SECNAV than anyone since Josephus Daniels served out both of Woodrow Wilson’s terms.
    And yes–he pissed off a heck of a lot of people both inside the Navy and out. Not altogether a bad thing.

  21. Mara Avatar
    Mara

    I watched this in my office – I have a TV at work – and I basically yelled at the set all day. This was beyond disgraceful. I really thought steam was going to come out of Kerik’s ears.
    To have these people, these out of towners, lecture professionals on how to do their business was an outrage. Bob Kerrey was talking to these guys about how easy it is to get lost in the City. Well Bob, being from Nebraska and only being here for a few years, I guess that’s true but honest to God, the firehouses in Manhattan can navigate the City without a lecture from you.
    Jamie Garelick (sp?) held up papers asking why Guiliani’s list of who was in charge during a disaster was different than Bloomberg’s. Well, maybe after 9/11 everyone realized that after the entire leadership of the FDNY was killed when Tower 2 fell, there needed to be better redundances. Guiliani set up for a situation where the person in charge was easy to find. That made sense on 9/10. It didn’t after that.
    Slate Gordon wanted to know why the City didn’t have a public safety officer. Hello? Maybe in Oregon or whereever he’s from this sounds like a great idea but this city deals with fires, crime, jumpers and all sorts of every day things with ease. If LA, Chicago, Miami, etc. don’t have one, why would New York?
    Oh, and Kerik nailed them when they asked if the City could handle another disaster. Bringing up the crash of Flight 587, the second largest air disaster in US history, happening a month after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks with power, water and gas back on in the area and the bodies of the dead removed 24 hours after the crash. Yeah, a public safety officer would have really made that go faster.
    They were snotty to the management of the building, the people who led tens of thousands of tenants – a small midwest city – out of the building before losing half their staff in the collapse. They were chided for not having a way to save people on the 100th floor when the 78th to 88th floors were burning at 2000 degrees. If the commissioners have any ideas about this, as a tenant in a high rise, I’d like to hear their escape routes.
    This commision is a joke. They jumped the shark weeks ago but now, I’m begging someone to pull the plug. Let the professionals – the ones who closed the subways, helped evac thousands, dug their friends and loved ones out of the rubble alive or dead – run the show. These silly commisioners preening like they know something and demanding answers from those who do and disagreeing with the pros. Thank God the guys who do know what’s what are protecting us – the commisioners are too busy working on their next “Hardball” or “Crossfire” close up.
    Sorry for the rant, this made me crazy today.

  22. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    What if they did everything right? What if the firemen and policemen did everything right and there was just no way the situation could have turned out any better then it did?

  23. jon h Avatar
    jon h

    Boy. You lionize these “heroes” and “professionals” simply because they survived a sneak attack and were in the right place at the right time to do so??
    Scandalous is the way to describe the decades-long infighting (between an entrenched sclerotic fire department and a police department only recently brought, kicking and screaming, into the late 20th century) that prevented something as simple as a unified radio system which could have savedscores of firefighters, let alone civilians in the towers. (and which STILL isn’t fixed, years later)
    This is what comissions do: lift up scabs and examine how we can do better, regardless of who’s being gored. Let’s maybe try being adults, and be grateful, not angry, as painful as it is.

  24. Tilli (Mojave Desert) Avatar
    Tilli (Mojave Desert)

    Jeff, you do not own 9/11.

  25. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    Jeff, from now on could you not post your opinions on everything to your website? I might not agree with your opinions at some point.

  26. Becky Avatar
    Becky

    one of the posters above says, ” firefighters have been complaining about their poor quality radios for years”
    With this in mind, it appears that Jeff is just jumping at the opportunity to demonize Lehman for saying what the firefighters are saying themselves.
    Hey Jeff, Instead of using the opportunity to get a couple of knifes in “the other side’s” back, why don’t you focus on the content instead of the delivery.
    You bitch about the partisan nature of this debate. Get a mirror.

  27. Joseph Avatar
    Joseph

    Hey Becky, I’m not making a partisan comment. I’m stating for you and all of the rest to hear and read, that this Commission is without legitimacy. List for me the investigative experience of the commission members. List their qualifications (besides availability) and their areas of expertise. That done, now show me their progress and make me believe that self aggrandizement and the advancement of their own agendas are not their goals. After all this is done, I will bow before this misbegotten committee and accept their pronouncements as gospel.

  28. Ryan J. McQueeney Avatar
    Ryan J. McQueeney

    I would have liked to have heard this from Guiliani:
    I’d like to thank Mr. Lehman for his brave and courageous comments regarding the actions of the N.Y. fire and police departments during the 9/11 disaster. It is obvious that their actions on that day were hardly worthy of the roles to which they were assigned, and we are lucky as a city and nation to have someone of the stature of Mr. Lehman to point out that truism to us from his cushy seat, two and a half years after the fact. Mr. Lehman, I congradulate you for your words, and the skill with which you have impugned the character of not only both departments, but the Boy Scouts as well, all in one sentence to boot. Mr. Lehman you truly are an ass.

  29. John Cunningham Avatar
    John Cunningham

    Clearly, Lehman was a great Navy Secy in the Reagan administration. Yesterday his performance was disgraceful, asshattery of the lowest order. I have thought that the DemonRAT members were grandstanding lowlifers, but the Repubs have now equalled them. 343 kicks in the balls for all the members, starting with Lehman. On second thought, maybe 344 for Lehman.

  30. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Tilli:
    But you clearly hold the patent on anonymous rudeness.
    You might want to start collecting royalties from others like you.

  31. megapotamus Avatar
    megapotamus

    Bush was right to oppose, to the extent politically possible, this insipid forum. I would say it should be disbanded but it has disgraced itself so thoroughly that, since it’s eventual product is so obviously tainted, it finally does serve a useful purpose; it is a lightning rod, distracting the gullible who otherwise might genuinely interfere in the serious business of statecraft in which the administration is involved. After it’s all over, we can have a REAL commission and get REAL answers. As currently proscuted, this thing is a farce.

  32. Sue Abramson Avatar
    Sue Abramson

    Slade Gorton is from Seattle. He got diselected at last after making nice with the Democrats during the impeachment trial in the Senate.

  33. Joseph Avatar
    Joseph

    I’m not sure why YOU are addressing me. I was talking about the orignial post by Jeff Jarvis.
    If indeed the firefighters had poor quality radios, then Jarvis was simply stabbing Lehman for partisan sake.
    It serves no one and makes the term hypocrite come to mind.

  34. Becky Avatar
    Becky

    the above post was by me..not Joseph. Must have filled him into the name slot by mistake.

  35. Forbes Avatar
    Forbes

    Conversations about FDNY and NYPD radio communications, and testimony about evacuating high rise structures, are fruitless if we, as a nation, can’t figure out how to prevent airliners from flying into those high rises. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness cannot co-exist with terrorism. This Commission ran off the rails many weeks ago in their efforts to micro manage policy making as a result of gathered intelligence, now they’re micro managing emergency response tactics. Silly. What was their mandate?

  36. Yogi Berra Avatar
    Yogi Berra

    Jeffo wrote:
    > But you clearly hold the patent on anonymous rudeness.
    All Tilli did was write this:
    > Jeff, you do not own 9/11.
    Rude? Hardly. Insightful? Absolutely. You claim moral superiority because of some accidental proximity to the World Trade Center. Guess what? Others of us lost a lot more than that, and we don’t claim moral superiority.