Where is the Outrage in America?

During the 1996 presidential election Sen. Bob Dole used to ask "Where is the outrage in America?" because he didn't think voters we getting upset enough about minor issues like Al Gore going to a Buddhist temple and some staffer reviewing FBI files.

After the recent release of the intelligence report one really has to ask "Where is the outrage in America?" But perhaps the bigger question should be "Who Gets Held to Account?"

On a recent on-line chat in the Washington Post, intelligence reporter Dana Priest responded to a question asking if anyone would be held responsible

Dana Priest: Well, President Bush gave George Tenet the Medal of Freedom. And the voters gave President Bush another term. SecDef Rumsfeld is in perfect standing with the president. His deputy is moving on to head the World Bank. The head of the other large intel agency, the National Security Agency (does eavesdropping) is becoming Negroponte's deputy. That leaves only the worker bees.

Surely, one might think, someone higher will be held accountable. Don't bet on it. Mark Silva wrote in the Chicago Tribune: "Bush has long refused to assign specific blame for intelligence failures to himself or top aides. What is not clear is whether Americans will accept this in the face of this latest, unusually scathing report.

But how can anyone blame Bush if he was everyone was united in giving him bad news so there must not have been any dissenting views. Um, well that's not how things went.

Dafna Linzer and Barton Gellman wrote in The Washington Post that it's not like no one spoke up. "Up until the days before U.S. troops entered Iraqi territory that March, the intelligence community was inundated with evidence that undermined virtually all charges it had made against Iraq, the report said."

Dole's had another good question that fits much more today than in 1996 - When will the voters start to focus?

When indeed.