On May 22, 2002, CBS anchor Dan Rather revealed Attorney General John Ashcroft "just before September 11 started taking private aircraft. . . . Well, that would indicate that somebody somewhere was getting pretty worried. . . . Why wasn't it shared with the public at large?" Mr Ashcroft stopped using commercial flights in July based upon "credible threats" to his life. The Justice Department denies a correlation.

The "Phoenix memo" has become a key focus of the congressional inquiry into the intelligence failures leading up to the attacks. How could the FBI miss this? Why were they unable to "connect the dots." Who dropped the ball? Bigger question. Who was watching the FBI. Where was Congress? Where was the Senate intelligence committee? Where were the leaders of the House? Where was President Clinton?

On January 29, 2002, the female, art-deco "Spirit of Justice" statue, with one breast exposed, was covered up at Attorney General Ashcroft's insistence. With $8000 velvet drapes. Ashcroft learned of a Phoenix memo -- written July 10, 2001, by FBI agent Kenneth Williams -- in the days after September 11, but did not brief legislators, or the President, about the memo's existence. Distracted by statues, perhaps?

The Bush Administration's Middle East policy is like a schizphrenic psychotic on ecstasy and cocaine with a touch of LSD. Colin Powell disagrees with Veep Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and National Security advisor Condaleezza Rice on the Middle East and other global issues. Add Arafat and Sharon and 'confusion' is redefined.