DougR-

I believe that you were the one that criticized my earlier posting on Bush and the Taliban, perhaps properly so, for coming from a source that was unknown to me. I therefore posted the account from the more "reputable" CNN. This is obviously a developing story and the principal source of information, John P. O'Neill, the former assistant director of the FBI who the book author claims to have interviewed, was unfortunately among those killed at the World Trade Center on September 11.

Nevertheless, whatever contacts took place between the Bush Administration and the Taliban before September 11 were undoubtedly documented by the State Department and/or the White House. Similarly, the FBI certainly documented its efforts and Mr. O'Neill may have documented his resignation. All of this should be available to appropriate Congressional Committees.

You ask why Daschle and the rest of the Democratic establishment have not seized upon this. I propose the answer is that they too do the bidding of the large corporations and are not especially inclined to focus on the injury the corporate to public policy causes to the rest of us. Senator Daschle, for example, has a terrible record of protecting Western Mining Interests (First Cousins of Big Oil) from such matters as environmental protection regulations and paying appropriate royalties for mineral rights below public lands. Moreover, it is difficult to attack the President's policy towards the Taliban before September 11 and to simultaneously back him 100% in his role as Commander-In-Chief against the Taliban after September 11. Daschle and the rest of the Democrats have consciously worked to avoid all foreign policy criticism and have, since September 11, limited their critiques of Bush to domestic issues.

I do not know the truth of the matter, but I certainly think it is a question worth pursuing. Its common thread with Enron is the elevation of corporate interests, particularly oil interests, above all else.

The deal described in the posting most likely seemed sensible from a business point of view. Why not build a shorter pipeline to bring Caspian Sea oil to market? The problem is that the politicians place these business interests above all else.

It is no coincidence that most of our worst enemies turn out to be people that we used to back. If we focused more on human rights and feeding the hungry in our foreign policy, rather than upon promoting the interests of business, we would not be having most of these problems. This is not a question of Democrat or Republican, its a question of establishment politics against the true interests of ordinary citizens.