So, a couple of months ago, I wrote that

It is, at this point, well within the realm of possibility that had Al Gore been elected, and retained Clinton's national security priorities, strategy, and tactics, we might have gotten a few headlines about oddball arrests in late August, 2001, and September 11th would have been just a glorious sunny day in New York. And Republicans like John Ashcroft, if not Ashcroft himself (who, remember, lost his Senate seat to the dead guy), would even now be painting Gore administration anti-terrorist plans and priorities as a sinister plot to undermine the rights of citizens -- just like Ashcroft himself did incessantly while Democrats were nominally in charge of federal law enforcement.

But stuff like that was still dismissed, at the time, as the ravings of shrill, left-wing conspiracy theorists. So it hardly got much play in the national press.

Today, the New York Times reports the findings of the 9/11 commission:

Far from a bolt from the blue, the commission has demonstrated over the last 19 months that the Sept. 11 attacks were foreseen, at least in general terms, and might well have been prevented, had it not been for misjudgments, mistakes and glitches, some within the White House.

But any jerk could have seen that months ago, just by looking at publically available facts -- after all, I did. So why expect the national media to fuss over it now? It's old news!

via Atrios...