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Our government, by its design, does not act proactively, especially when implementing new bureaucracies, which is all the 9/11 Commission really offers.  To be sure, there are a number of recommendations that may be worthwhile, but the mere fact that they are contributing to the growth of government makes them a questionable "reform."  Reactively enacting their findings through blind fear or partisan rancor is not going to change the events of September 11, 2001, but carefully studying the validity of the reforms will help to prevent other attacks.

The Kerry campaign insists that well over half of the proposed reforms could be implemented through Executive Order.  In a parallel to President Clinton's feckless implementation of other "critical" Executive Orders in his final hours in office, the Kerry campaign insists that the first actions of President Kerry would be to institute all of the Commission's reforms.

This is dangerous, but typical, big-government, knee-jerk liberalism at its best.  If there is the suggestion for increasing bureaucracy and increasing the size of government, the socialist liberals will surely label it as a good thing, especially if it confronts an issue emotionally or reactively.  Like many liberal politicians, Senator Kerry has made a career out of reacting to various issues with little thought.  Workers need more money?  Implement a minimum wage increase and to heck with inflation or the increase of unemployment!  The unemployed aren't able to find a job?  Increase welfare benefits and so what that it does little to actually combat the unemployment problems!  Things are going badly in Iraq or in the war on terror?  Go crying to the United Nations and what difference does it make that they thoroughly and repeatedly botched any attempts to keep Hussein or his terrorist connections from the continued development of weapons of mass destruction!  The Bush campaign points out Kerry's flip-flopping, big-government, ultra-liberal record?  Label it negative politicking and hope no one notices it's true!

The 9/11 Commission offers interesting, insightful, and innovative ways of correcting the deficiencies that contributed to our government's failure to prevent the September 11 attacks.  They offer the proactive suggestion of an intelligence czar in part to combat the knee-jerk reforms instituted by liberals more interested in protecting the civil rights of terrorists than the lives of actual Americans.  These "walls" of privacy prevented intelligence agencies from sharing information with each other.  Liberals prefer we forget they instituted poorly conceived changes to combat the loss of civil liberties by those who had no constitutional protections to begin with.  Their reactive reforms were a significant contributing factor in the failure to prevent September 11, yet they hope to get people to ignore this by keeping the attention on Bush's failure make similar knee-jerk reforms.

Michael Moore's so-called documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, offers a similar criticism of President Bush by insisting he should have acted immediately upon learning that terrorists had attacked this country.  Moore seeks a reactive Bush who ripped his shirt open to reveal a big "S" and flew from the school vowing to destroy all who dared attack this great country.  Anyone who believes Moore's sincerity should realize that he would have just as readily condemned Bush for daring to act the superhero cowboy in doing such a thing.

The president finds himself in a similar circumstance now.  He could once again pull his cape on and go swooping around Washington demanding the blind implementation of the Commission's reforms, but Democrats would just as likely criticize Bush for failing to consider the breadth of the Commission's report.

Just because the 9/11 Commission says that their reforms should be implemented doesn't mean that their ideas cannot be proactively considered.  They offer suggestions, not legislative requirements.  By its very definition, suggestions can be discussed and improved upon so that the reforms won't require fixing somewhere down the road.  We must enact these reforms proactively.  Things need to be reviewed, things need to be considered, and then plans need to be implemented.  Not the other way around.

Like most presidents, Bush does not have the time or luxury to be proactive, and he is ironically criticized for being too reactive.  But, we cannot successfully protect our country with knee-jerk reactions.  Liberals criticize Bush's pre-emptive war policy but it is a proactive policy.  It is the purest implementation of the 9/11 Commission's demands that our government become proactive in the war against terrorism.  Ironically, what the Commission now views as a proactive policy was at the time reactive.  The Bush Doctrine was implemented just nine days after the World Trade Center attacks.  Not all reactive policies are bad, but the long-term benefits of the policy must be carefully considered.

The politicizing of this issue and Bush's lose-lose situation is due to the two competing approaches to our government and our safety.  One is reactive and one is proactive.  Because of the nature of their policies, Democrats are typically reactive, doing whatever they can to make people feel good in the moment.  Republicans, on the other hand, prefer to be proactive, thinking things through and trying to find a way to approach an issue before it becomes a problem.  Unfortunately, neither approach is ideal.  America does not like to act proactively, hence the failure to stop bin Laden in Sudan or Afghanistan and the lack of the people's foresight to see the disaster averted in Iraq.

On the other hand, being merely reactive is equally devastating.  Focusing on the reaction leads to days like December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001.  Both were foreseeable, but proactive thinking wasn't accepted by the public, and all that was left was a reactive response.

The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission must be similarly approached.  The 9/11 Commission stresses proactive thinking, yet a pause by the Bush administration in the implementation of their policies is blasted as too slow.  We must act quickly, but not at the expense of examining the long-term benefits of whatever we do.  Remember, the "wall" of privacy preventing the sharing of intelligence probably seemed like a good idea at the time, too.  

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