Mum's the word. (Editor's Note).

Imagine if Al Gore had been President on September 11. Republicans would be up in arms! They would be talking about dereliction of duty, about being asleep at the wheel. There would be calls for the President to resign, and maybe even a stray shout of impeachment.

But since a Republican is President, mum's the word for most Republicans. Even though Bush was warned of Al Qaeda and hijacking, even though the FBI had enough information to piece the threat together, the Republican Party and the Administration are desperately trying to muzzle criticism. Dick Cheney said criticism from Democrats was "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in time of war." But that's typical Cheney. He views almost all criticism as an affront to the king, and Congress as an impertinence.

Then there's Condoleezza Rice. Her ridiculous performance at a press conference on May 16, where she said that no one could have imagined terrorists flying planes into buildings, must have been almost enough to send Karen Hughes unpacking. Rice admitted that she and the President were briefed in August about Al Qaeda and possible hijackings. She should have known about a 1999 National Intelligence Council report that warned explicitly about planes being flown into the Pentagon or the CIA or the White House. And she, or her deputies, should have pulled together all the available information in the executive branch, including the incriminating FBI memos from Phoenix and Minneapolis, and the allegedly hectic, but nonspecific, warnings from the CIA, which only belatedly took the threat seriously.

The intelligence agencies get more than $30 billion a year. Their job is to sniff out dangers to America. They messed up. As a result, 3,000 innocent people died on September 11. And now, our precious liberties are on the chopping block, with the FBI freed to do domestic spying as in the bad old days of Cointelpro.

Almost every time I've spoken in public since September 11, I've heard variations on the theme that Bush not only knew about the attacks, but wanted the United States to be attacked so he could (and here you can take your pick):

a) Increase his popularity by waging war;

b) Justify an increase in Pentagon spending;

c) Boost the profits of the Carlyle Group, a private military investment company that includes Bush's father, among other heavyweights.

While September 11 may have had all three of these effects, the claim that Bush intentionally let it happen for his own nefarious purposes is well beyond my significant skeptical powers. I'm prepared to believe Bush is lazy. I recognize he is of middling intelligence. But I don't buy the notion that he was willing to sit idly by as 3,000 Americans were murdered at the hands of Al Qaeda. A far more likely explanation is simple bureaucratic incompetence. By all means, let's get to the bottom of that. But hold the paranoia.

When lefties go off half-cocked with conspiracy theories, it does our cause no good. We instantly lose credibility with our fellow citizens, and it distracts us from the main problem: Not that a few corrupt individuals are taking the country over a cliff, but that a system of militarism and corporatism distorts our values, inverts our priorities, and helps to sow the seeds of hatred overseas.

Let's focus on that, and not the Carlyle Group.