NETWORKS SCRAMBLE TO REPORT.

As the unthinkable happened - deadly terrorist attacks on American soil this morning - network television news anchors were flatly flabbergasted and clearly ill-prepared to cope with a tragedy of this magnitude.

After four hijacked airplanes smashed into targets including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, ABC gathered its senses first, and best. Anchor Peter Jennings maintained an epic composure under unimaginable conditions.

``It's a time to watch, absorb and think,'' he stated simply as the second tower of the World Trade Center collapsed live on TV at 7:38 a.m. PST. He continued to provide perspective, pointing out that Americans' psychological response was also an ingredient of the act of terrorism, a tacit call for calm.

Other anchors were not so circumspect. CBS' Dan Rather, as usual, was the most histrionic. He railed against security in American airports.

``Anyone who's been in an airport could tell you how (the multiple hijackings) could happen,'' he ranted.

Later, he amplified his theme: ``Anyone who's been in an airport can tell you that security are napping. We've all known that for some time.'' Well, not really. Rather ladled on the melodrama: ``It's almost impossible to conceive of the blood and screams of the dying.''

NBC's Tom Brokaw attempted, ill-advisedly, to parse out who suffered the most: Those in the hijacked aircraft ``had to (experience) the worst kind of terror,'' he decided, conjuring without available facts violent scenarios. ``Did they shoot the pilot?''

CNN's Jeff Greenfield declared, ``This may be the day that America's luck ran out.'' Dramatic, certainly, but, really, on a day when life as we know it was irretrievably changed, what could these people say?

As the day wore on, the shocking footage was broadcast repeatedly and the networks trotted out talking heads to fill time and provide conjecture while awaiting honest news. Sketchy details were never resolved - rumors of a car bomb outside the State Department were introduced, then never returned to.

Instead, some of the speakers were head-scratchers: Newt Gingrich raved about acts of war, and Frank Keating, governor of Oklahoma when the government building there was bombed, was called on by Fox News Channel to discuss being shocked - which didn't explain anything about this event.

CNN brought on techno-novelist Tom Clancy, because he had written the thriller ``Debt of Honor,'' about terrorists crashing a plane into the Capital. Clancy, however, did attempt to provide some perspective in the early confusion, warning against a kneejerk reaction against Islam and making a plea for a sane reaction to the tragedy:

``It's the principles you hold onto in times of trouble that really count.''

Senator Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, echoed that thought: ``If we have to change our civil liberties, then we have lost the war.''

By 10:15 a.m., most of the networks had the eerily digitally disrupted image of President George W. Bush insisting, ``We will show the world that we will pass this test.''