If you happened to watch "Path to 911" Sunday night, I think you would find it difficult to say that it was not an accurate depiction of how our government worked during the Clinton years.

I dare say that the cutting ABC was forced to do by many Democrats (most of whom had not seen it) were probably also based on actual occurrences.

Do we really think that Sandy "Burglar" stuffed non-incriminating documents in his pants to be destroyed before the 911 Commission saw them?

The next part was in part equally unflattering to the Bush years. That, of course, is fine with Democrats. They also didn't speak out indignantly about "Fahrenheit 911" inaccuracies.

I believe the message of "Path to 911" was that there is a serious enemy out there that will ultimately take us down if we continue to use methods of dealing with them that we did before.

It is a war, not a law-and-order problem. Some techniques for winning wars aren't for tea parties. Most importantly it is not a time for playing politics and worrying about how people might judge us.

Who cares if Bill Clinton or George Bush look bad, if we can learn lessons about how to deal with this serious situation?

The Bush administration has learned some of those lessons and applied the corrective action for a lot of it. The New York Times and others have tried to derail many of them by exposing secrets, gained from unhappy bureaucrats. They make gaining information from the enemy seem illegal.

They also make anything that looks like progress seem bad, including the conflict in Iraq. We have to start working together or they win.

Polk Dillon

Pinehurst