Well, not completely ignored. John Ashcroft began taking only private planes for his travel after that, citing security reasons for the change in his travel plans.

You can download the document that provided our President and his administration a very complete and specific warning that the 9-11-2001 attacks were being planned and were ready to be implemented. While reading this document, be sure to think how fondly you feel towards a President that could not be distracted from clearing brush in Crawford, TX, in order to save American lives.

It does not matter how much intelligence information is delivered to the President, if he has no intelligence himself, no concern for American lives, and no motivation to defeat those that would kill Americans on our own soil.

Remember that bin Laden still has not been captured or killed.

August 6, 2001 - A day that will live in infamy.

It is clear that John McCain is basically clueless about political affairs and foreign policy. He cannot even remember what he has said regarding Iraq from one day to the other.

On the Run-Up to War

“Look, we’re going to send young men and women in harm’s way and that’s always a great danger, but I cannot believe that there is an Iraqi soldier who is going to be willing to die for Saddam Hussein, particularly since he will know that our objective is to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

“But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don’t believe it’s going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991.”
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

“He’s a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart.”
John McCain, on Ahmed Chalabi, 2003.

On Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction

“Proponents of containment claim that Iraq is in a “box.” But it is a box with no lid, no bottom, and whose sides are falling out. Within this box are definitive footprints of germ, chemical and nuclear programs.”
John McCain, February 13, 2003.

“I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
John McCain, June 11, 2003.

On Being Greeted as Liberators

“Absolutely. Absolutely.”
John McCain, asked by Chris Matthews, “you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?” March 12, 2003.

“Not only that, they’ll be relieved that he’s not in the neighborhood because he has invaded his neighbors on several occasions.”
John McCain, asked by Chris Matthews, “And you think the Arab world will come to a grudging recognition that what we did was necessary?” March 12, 2003.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that we will prevail and there’s no doubt in my mind, once these people are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators.”
John McCain, March 24, 2003.

On a Rapid Victory and Mission Accomplished

“I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks.”
John McCain, January 28, 2003.

“It’s clear that the end is very much in sight…It won’t be long. It, it’ll be a fairly short period of time.”
John McCain, April 9, 2003.

“We won a massive victory in a few weeks, and we did so with very limited loss of American and allied lives.”
John McCain, May 22, 2003.

“I thought it was wrong at the time. Do I blame him for that specific banner? I can’t.”
John McCain, on President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech, May 1, 2008.

“Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?”
John McCain, responding to assertion by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that “many argue the conflict isn’t over,” June 11, 2003.

“I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict — the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished, and it’s very appropriate.”
John McCain, June 11, 2003.

“I’m confident we’re on the right course.”
John McCain, March 7, 2004.

“We’re either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months.”
John McCain, November 12, 2006.

“My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years.”
John McCain, February 25, 2008.

On the Safe Streets of Baghdad

“[There] there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.”
John McCain, after touring a Baghdad market wearing a bulletproof vest and guarded by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead, April 1, 2007.

“There’s problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know.”
John McCain, March 8, 2008.

On President Bush and His Team

“We are very fortunate that our president in these challenging days can rely on the counsel of a man who has demonstrated time and again the resolve, experience, and patriotism that will be required for success and the hard-headed clear thinking necessary to prevail in this global fight between good and evil.”
John McCain, on Dick Cheney, July 16, 2004.

“I think he strengthened our national defenses. I think he has a good team around him.”
John McCain, on President Bush, September 3, 2004.

“I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence.”
John McCain, on whether he had confidence in Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, December 15, 2004.

On the Non-Existent Alliance Between Al Qaeda and Iran

“But Al Qaeda is there, they are functioning, they are supported in many times, in many ways by the Iranians.”
John McCain, February 28, 2008.

“As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq.”
John McCain, March 17, 2008.

“[Iranian operatives are] “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”
John McCain, March 18, 2008.
“[It is] common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”
John McCain, March 18, 2008.
“Al Qaeda and Shia extremists — with support from external powers such as Iran — are on the run but not defeated.”
McCain campaign statement, March 19, 2008.
“To think that I would have some lack of knowledge about Sunni and Shia after my eighth visit and my deep involvement in this issue is a bit ludicrous.”
John McCain, March 19, 2008.
“Do you still view Al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat? Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shiites overall…”
John McCain, questioning General David Petraeus, April 8, 2008.
On a Permanent American Military Presence in Iraq
“We cannot keep our forces indefinitely staged in the region. Were we to attempt again to contain Saddam, we would eventually have to withdraw them. The world is full of dangers and, more likely than not, we will need some of those brave men and women to face them down.”
John McCain, February 13, 2003.
“We have had troops in South Korea for 60 years and nobody minds.”
John McCain, June 7, 2007.
“Make it a hundred.”
John McCain, told that President Bush had said American troops could remain in Iraq for 50 years, January 3, 2008.
“I asked McCain about his ‘hundred years’ comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for ‘a thousand years’ or ‘a million years,’ as far as he was concerned.”
David Corn, January 3, 2008.
“The U.S. could have a military presence anywhere in the world for a long period of time.”
John McCain, February 20, 2008.
“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom.”
John McCain, May 15, 2008.

PERRspectives Blog: Is McCain “Sick at Heart” Over His Own Iraq Mistakes.

He believes he has said enough simply to say that something “sends the wrong signal”, never mind the “Why?” that inevitably accompanies such a statement.

Here’s an editorial, and in Bush’s terminology, perhaps he can understand that opposing the new GI Bill is “sending the wrong signal” to the troops that he claims to support. However his support is limited to political gamesmanship and speeches before military audiences, nothing else.

Here is an editorial from the New York Times, on this Memorial Day:

President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it.

He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.

So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home.

Thankfully, the new G.I. Bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress. The House passed it by a veto-proof margin this month, and last week the Senate followed suit, approving it as part of a military financing bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Senate version was drafted by two Vietnam veterans, Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska. They argue that benefits paid under the existing G.I. Bill have fallen far behind the rising costs of college.

Their bill would pay full tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for veterans who served in the military for at least three years since 9/11.

At that level, the new G.I. Bill would be as generous as the one enacted for the veterans of World War II, which soon became known as one of the most successful benefits programs — one of the soundest investments in human potential — in the nation’s history.

Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.

They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.

Their reasoning is flawed since the C.B.O. has also predicted that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits — by 16 percent. The chance of a real shot at a college education turns out to be as strong a lure as ever. This is good news for our punishingly overburdened volunteer army, which needs all the smart, ambitious strivers it can get.

This page strongly supports a larger, sturdier military. It opposes throwing ever more money at the Pentagon for defense programs that are wasteful and poorly conceived. But as a long-term investment in human capital, in education and job training, there is no good argument against an expanded, generous G.I. Bill.

By threatening to veto it, Mr. Bush is showing great consistency of misjudgment. Congress should forcefully show how wrong he is by overriding his opposition and spending the money — an estimated $52 billion over 10 years, a tiniest fraction of the ongoing cost of Mr. Bush’s Iraq misadventure.

As partial repayment for the sacrifice of soldiers in a time of war, a new, improved G.I. Bill is as wise now as it was in 1944.

Editorial - Mr. Bush and the G.I. Bill - Editorial - NYTimes.com.

There is nothing to say that the price at the pump cannot just remain the same once a tax holiday takes place, with the oil companies pocketing even the $28.00. In fact, Paul Krugman, Economist, and columnist for the New York Times, said:

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was similarly underwhelmed: “It’s Econ 101: the tax cut really goes to the oil companies,” he wrote on his blog on Tuesday.

Clinton-McCain gas tax holiday slammed as bad idea.

There are many more effective ways to help consumers with the cost of gas than passing on a cost-savings to oil companies.

Over the past several days, some of the nation’s leading economic and political pundits have weighed in critically on the proposal of both Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain to institute a gas tax holiday this summer.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times said on Tuesday that Clinton’s idea, while less “evil” than McCain’s, was still “pointless” and “disappointing.”

One day later, Tom Friedman, also of the Times, called the idea “so ridiculous…it takes your breath away.”

And Jonathan Alter of Newsweek piled on: “Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year — an idea that actually could aid the terrorists.”

Surely, however, there must be someone out there not associated with a politician or a candidate who supported the idea of a gas tax reprieve — especially if, as Clinton suggests, it would be paid for by an excess profits tax on oil companies.

I emailed Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s spokesperson, asking him to put me in touch with an economic or environmental analyst who favored his boss’ plan. He never wrote back.

So I took the task upon myself. I would call experts from all sides of the ideological aisle to get a sense of where the debate stood. In the end, every single analyst I surveyed judged the gas tax holiday proposal to be, roughly speaking, a silly, superfluous, or outright pandering idea.

I started with what I thought would be my best shot, the libertarians. Jerry Taylor, a fellow for the Cato Institute, unfortunately, called the proposal a “holiday from reality.”

“What would happen more likely than not, gas taxes would be cut, but pump prices wouldn’t go down, service stations would just continue charging what they are charging,” he said. “I’m a Libertarian and I don’t mind that. But you might not be a Libertarian and you might believe the federal treasury needs that money… Now if this were a permanent reduction of the tax, I would be all for it.”

Alright, one “no.” Perhaps the free-marketers would be of a different ilk. I was wrong.

“I think it is close to political pandering,” said Max Schulz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “It is bad policy and political gimmickry. If you want to deliver relief to folks you have to do more than just this little holiday from the gas tax.
You have to address what is driving the price of crude oil, even problems with the weak dollar. You aren’t going to win any points doing that, however. But you will get points if you get up and say let’s suspend the gas tax for a few months… I never have seen the wisdom of playing gimmicks games of the tax code.”

Who, I asked, would favor the proposal? “Political advisers to candidates,” was Schulz’s response. “It is entirely due to the focus of the presidential election coinciding with the summer.”

From Schulz, I moved on to the conservative crowd. But Ken Green, an energy expert for the American Enterprise Institute, ended up being similarly dismissive.

“There would be economic sense in eliminating the gas tax completely and replacing it with tolls. That would make sense,” he said, “but if you remove the tax now, the things being funded with the money will still need funds. Or it will be funded with taxpayer’s dollars from other things. So it will be less at the pump and more in your tax bill.”

He went on: “All of these candidates claim to be environmentally conscious people, so what do they want to do? Lower the cost of driving in the summer time when it is the highest demand in the first place.”

“I’m afraid,” he summarized, “that your record is going to be unbroken in terms of finding someone who will like this idea.”

Sigh. I tried my hand with the progressive wing of the ideological spectrum. There too, however, the idea of a gas-tax holiday was dismissed as ineffectual and publicity-driven.

Bob Sussman, an energy analyst with the Center for American Progress, and, for full disclosure, a supporter of Barack Obama, saw little benefit or popularity to either Clinton or McCain’s proposal.

“Rather than indiscriminately suspending the gas tax, if we have a revenue source here to help people in need, we out to target the money to people who really need it. And if you suspend the gas tax you are giving a small break to every body instead of a significant break to the people pinched by the high prices,” he said. “They might appreciate a small economic break. But I haven’t heard anyone clamoring for this.”

But Sussman offered a glimmer of hope. He suggested I might be able to find support from transportation workers, unions and organizations.

So I tracked down Roger Tauss, the International Vice President for the Transport Worker’s Union, which supports Obama but would, nevertheless, stick to its issues. The results were more of the same.

“It is crazy,” he said. “There is a bunch of different reason it is crazy and all the economist are saying it is nuts. First of all it is pocket change and it doesn’t do anything short term. It will just put more money in the oil companies pockets. It is typical Washington beltway crap. It is just like typical. They make a big fight over a small, nothing issue, and nothing will ever get done.”

Finally, I got a quote from Robert Shapiro, formerly the undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and the author of “Futurecast.” An independent voice with ties to the former first lady, however, did not give the expected results.

“Stated as clearly as I can,” he wrote, “it’s utterly misguided both environmentally and economically. Environmentally, it does actual harm, since it reduces the price of producing greenhouse gases. And economically it’s trivial or worse — by reducing the price of driving it encourages more of it, thereby increasing demand for gasoline, which inevitably pushes the price back up - the consumer gains nothing, and the oil companies and OPEC collect the extra bucks instead of the government.”

UPDATE: Even the American Trucking Association, the group the Clinton camp says is most favorable to it’s idea, offers a tepid thanks but no thanks. From the group’s spokesperson:

ATA appreciates the effort and supports the proposals. But we do have concerns that any fuel tax suspension proposal could damage the already ailing Highway Trust Fund.

To the extent that McCain and Snowe’s proposals use general revenue funds to offset the hit to the trust fund, that concern is addressed.

ATA did not ask for this legislation. And we believe it is only a very short term answer that does not do anything to address the longer term issue of rising fuel prices. ATA recognizes that rising fuel costs have a disproportionate impact on small trucking companies where even a small savings can be the difference in their staying in business.

Clinton, it should be noted, would not pay for the tax break from the Highway Trust Funds. But the message seems the same: this is not the answer needed.

Expert Support For Gas Tax Holiday Appears Nonexistent - Politics on The Huffington Post.

Some of John McCain’s best friends are Neocons. So much so that he signed a letter in 1998 to President Clinton, that among other things stated that “the only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq is able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction.” So when John McCain tells you that 9/11 changed his way of thinking, unless he’s referring to 9/11/98, chalk it up to more of that famous “straight-talk.”

Other signatories of this letter included a cast of characters who would become infamous for doing foreign policy the way Lindsay Lohan does driving. Including: Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz. Yes, those geniuses.

So when, on March 13, 2007, he didn’t show up to vote on the “Keeping America Secure Act,” one had to wonder what kind of agenda he’s really committed to. Whatever the merits of that piece of legislation, one might have expected McCain, who portrays himself as a staunch defender against future 9/11’s, to at least debate the issue.

Upon further inspection it gets even more fishy.

McCain had 16 votes that day. He made 15 of them. The only one he missed was the one to codify the 9/11 Commission recommendations. And coincidentally, of course, Neocons hated those recommendations, because they talked about meeting with the Iranians and Syrians, for example, instead of just blowing them up.

The following excerpt from my new book, The Real McCain (PoliPoint Press, 2008) explains what went down:

***

Unlike George W. Bush, McCain could never be accused of being AWOL from the military. But an examination of his congressional voting record might earn him the tag AWOC, or “Absent Without Courage.” For McCain has shown that when it comes to the tough votes, the ones requiring him to take a stand, he adheres to the ancient philosophy espoused by Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid: “Best defense, no be there.”

Simply put, in the first session of the 110th Congress (2007), the senator from Arizona missed, by a wide margin, more votes than any of his Senate colleagues but one, Democrat Tim Johnson, who was sidelined with a serious brain hemorrhage.

According to the Washington Post database tracking Senate “vote missers,” McCain had missed a whopping 261 of 468 votes, or almost 56 percent, by March 2008. McCain is understandably busy running for president — and all the candidates running for that highest of offices in 2008 have shown a poor record in showing up for votes. But number of votes missed is one thing; which votes you miss is another. McCain the maverick has missed votes in a way that betrays a calculated strategy: namely, to avoid going on the record when doing so would be politically risky.

On March 13, 2007, a critical roll call vote was held in the Senate on the Improving America’s Security Act, which codified implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations for protecting America. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were there. So were then presidential candidates senators Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Joe Biden of Delaware, and Sam Brownback of Kansas. Where was John McCain? According to his official calendar, he was in California for a series of big-money fundraisers.

Did Arizona’s senior senator think a key vote on protecting America wasn’t important enough to make? Could it be that McCain didn’t want to go against the wishes of his party and be on the record — with 38 other Republicans — in opposing increased security for America? McCain was the only senator, other than Tim Johnson, to miss that vote.

McCain wasn’t out of town on the presidential campaign trail but was instead practicing the art of selective voting — the art of “no be there” — on March 23. It was a busy legislative day that saw 16 roll call votes on the floor. McCain voted dependably, right down the party line, on fifteen of those proposed votes. One might surmise that the missed vote occurred early in the morning, before McCain got to the office, or late at night, after he’d left, maybe to attend a fundraiser or get a beer with Imus.

Wrong. The vote McCain missed that day occurred right in the middle of the legislative day and between two other votes for which he was present. The one he missed was for an amendment (Amdt. 529) to provide $1.2 billion for the highly successful COPS program, an initiative that gives “local law enforcement critical resources necessary to prevent and respond to violent crime and acts of terrorism.” Perhaps the issues before and after the ducked vote were not as uncomfortable for McCain. Have a look at the vote timeline for the hour in question:

It’s possible that Senator McCain just happened to be in the men’s room or the Senate cafeteria when vote number 110 was held. Or maybe he didn’t want to be on record as voting against a provision called the Improving America’s Security Act. McCain, unlike his 33 colleagues, would have to stand by that vote as a presidential candidate in 2008.

McCain found a way to miss most of the important votes on Iraq in the first part of the 110th Congress. He even bailed on a critical Iraq war briefing by General David Petraeus on April 25, 2007, so that he could campaign in New Hampshire that day.

Yet his speeches suggest complete vigilance. “We must win in Iraq. We cannot fail,” said McCain in a May 2006 speech to the Utah State Republican Convention. “If we lose in Iraq, they’re coming after us. We will fight them somewhere else — like here. It’s all part of a gigantic, titanic struggle between good and evil.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took notice: “Senator McCain,” Reid said through his spokesperson Liz Oxhorn in May 2007, “has spent considerable time defending the president on Iraq … but has only managed to show up for four of the last fourteen Iraq votes.”

Did McCain Avoid Voting on a Key 9/11 Bill Because He’s Afraid of the Neocons? | Election 2008 | AlterNet.