Eyes Only! This post will self destruct in 60 seconds!

Glenn Reynolds links to this report about possible secret involvement -- by Saudi government operatives -- with the September 11 hijackers:

The report is sure to reignite questions about whether some Saudi officials were secretly monitoring the hijackers—or even facilitating their conduct. Questions about the Saudi role arose repeatedly during last year’s joint House-Senate intelligence-committees inquiry. But the Bush administration has refused to declassify many key passages of the committees’ findings. A 28-page section of the report dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments will be deleted. “They are protecting a foreign government,” charged Sen. Bob Graham, who oversaw the inquiry.

If in fact the Bush administration is protecting the Saudi government, then what are the implications? This is not my speculation, but a question begging to be answered by a series of events: Price Bandar's close relationship with the White House; the spiriting away of bin Laden family members before they could be questioned; and (most suspicious of all in my humble opinion) the role of Saudi Intelligence Chief Turki al Faisal -- who retired from his post just weeks before September 11.

Arthur Silber is someone I have cited many times in this blog, and with whom I sometimes do not want to agree, because his conclusions are so deeply disturbing. But regardless of whether I or anyone else agrees with him, his analytical skills are only exceeded by his impeccable integrity. Might Arthur be right about the following?

The roots of that foreign policy have now produced an enormous plant -- one with lengthy tendrils which reach into every corner of our domestic economy, and which simultaneously reach overseas to almost every corner of the globe. The very nature of this international corporate statism profoundly distorts everything it touches: an accurate assessment of genuine threats to our security; a determination of the most efficient, and least intrusive, methods of eliminating those threats; and the overall health of our economy, to name just a few.

Or, were we simply betrayed by an ally? If the latter is the case (as I would like to believe it is), then WHY THE HELL ARE THEY COVERING IT UP?

Then there's Don Watkins echoing similar thoughts on the same subject. Watkins concludes:

Here's what bugs me. Do you think Bush would have covered up this information if it was about Iraq? I mean, Jesus, we just went to war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and here's our own government protecting a country which very well might have had something to do with 9/11. How's that for consistency? If the American people really ever did have a right to know something it is this. I hope someone with some goddamn integrity leaks those missing pages.

But if these views are insufficiently conservative for your tastes, how about Michelle Malkin? (Link courtesy of Arthur Silber.)

Or how about the ultraliberal WorldNetDaily?

On a practical note, the cover-up is failing, and Liberia isn't a big enough tail to wag. The only thing to do is to release the report and level with the American people. If American voters think the government is covering up involvement by Saudi government operatives, I don't want to think about what they might be ready to do.

On the other hand....

Government cover-ups sometimes can work, if they are bipartisan in nature, and if the government and the media work hand in hand.

Just for fun, read this remarkable story.

And just in case that doesn't jumpstart your curiosity, read this (spend some time reading through the documents; it's incredibly rich and I am not supposed to talk about it). If that only whetted your appetite, by all means check out this too.

What I am quite deliberately daring to talk about here is Vincent Foster. He was Bill Clinton's White House Counsel, who was found shot to death exactly ten years ago today.

I am not talking about the unmentionable Mr. Foster because I am trying to shock you, my un-shockable readers. (I know you can take it or you wouldn't be here.) I want to make an important point about the nature of cover-ups. They can work if they are bipartisan in nature and the media cooperate fully. The Vincent Foster case ought to outrage the public, but it cannot get its foot in the door because -- well, how do I put this?

If you talk about Vincent Foster, or ask questions like "What happened to Vincent Foster's hard drive?" you will never be invited to the really cool parties, you won't get promoted to any position of responsibility, and intelligent sophistos everywhere will roll their eyes knowingly at each other. You will be considered either an outright mental case, or at the very least, a pathetic right wing conspiracy theorist kook. (Never mind whether a murder is being covered up at the highest levels; let's think about our social status, and what other people might think.)

That's why I never discuss the Vincent Foster story at elite cocktail parties. I know better. I first heard about the story ten years ago, and I watched as the cover-up forces -- people who really know how to snub a guy -- deliberately, systematically spun the story way out into the Outer Limits of the First Amendment. Forget completely about whether the official story stinks to high hell; Vincent Foster has been placed in the same league as the Globalist UN Bilderbergers plot, the old fluoride-in-the-water, Council on Foreign Relations, homos-are-taking-over-the-world bullshit. (And people who believe in such things are the only ones whose laughable social standing grants them permission to talk about Vincent Foster.)

I never talk about Vincent Foster anymore.

I swear I don't.

And if perchance I am at one of those elitist parties, if anyone were to ask me about what I just said in this blog, I'd ask "Where's your sense of humor? What's wrong with asking questions about a little murder, or what happened to the victim's hard drive?"

It's all in fun.

As I said yesterday, the First Amendment is just an exercise.

Nothing to ruin your social standing over!