The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th, or 9/11) were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks launched by the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. areas on September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger jets, intending to fly them in suicide attacks into targeted buildings. Two of those planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashed into the North and South towers, respectively, of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. Both towers collapsed within two hours and falling debris, combined with fires that the debris initiated in several surrounding buildings, led to the partial or complete collapse of all the other buildings in the World Trade Center complex, also causing major damage to ten other large structures in the immediate area of the complex. A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was crashed into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense), leading to a partial collapse in its western side. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was targeted at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., but crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers. Almost 3,000 people died in the attacks, including all 227 civilians and 19 hijackers aboard the four planes.

I just assumed that after one congressional probe, a two-years-long bipartisan commission and more solid journalism than even our business has awards for and that would be a lot we could all agree that fingers could be safely pointed at at least three entities: the terrorists, for launching the attacks; and both the Clinton and Bush administrations, for acting too timidly to stop them, despite all the warning signs.
No, instead, we're witnessing a full dynastic rumble about who is to blame.

Chris Wallace asked Clinton last weekend if he had done enough to get bin Laden. Clinton eventually said no, but not before he leveled two charges at the Bush White House one legit, one not. First, he said the Bush team demoted his counterterror czar Richard Clarke. That's technically right, but even the Kean-Hamilton commission noted Clarke continued to function at the same level of authority inside the White House as before. (Many Democrats just refuse to believe this.)

But what really teed off the Bushies is that Clinton then said that his successor "did not try" to kill or stop bin Laden for the first eight months in office that is, the eight months before the 9/11 atttacks. The Bush White House has always been hugely sensitive about this charge because, well, there is some truth to it. The new administration came into office and put terror about third or fourth down on its list of big worries, behind Russia, the ABM treaty, and sorting out that unexpected spy plane problem with the Chinese. (Many Republicans just refuse to believe this.)

And the person (besides Bush himself) most responsible for ordering things that way was Condoleezza Rice, then the National Security Adviser, a longtime Russia expert. It was always my impression that Rice made it through all the after-action reviews of 9/11 surprisingly unscathed and I think that clean accounting helps explain why Rice, who is now Secretary of State, jumped into this slapfest on Monday. That's when she charged that Clinton failed to leave behind a "comprehensive" strategy for dealing with bin Laden. If by that she means a plan to invade Afghanistan, she's partly right Clinton's terror advisers presented a plan that stopped short of invasion. But even if invasion had been included, such a plan would have gone nowhere. Everyone knows the first thing the Bush team did was reflexively throw out anything that had Clinton's scent, much less his name, on it.

That reflex really burned the Clintons who maintain that the nation would be far better off if Bush had stuck with prevailing U.S. policy with regard to the Koreas and China and the Middle East and was almost surely what provoked Sen. Hillary Clinton to step in Tuesday and counter-slap Rice. Sen. Clinton said her husband would not have sat on his hands if he had seen, as Bush did, an intelligence estimate in August 2001 suggesting that bin Laden might try to run some jetliners into skyscrapers.

That's an imponderable. Simply because Mrs. Clinton is in the mix, there will be another round today, or maybe two, before the day is over. There's nothing like a good dynastic rumble to wake up both parties' sleepy activist core. But all it has done is remind us that both sides are to blame.

Your child's growing independence from the family and interest in friends might be obvious by now. Healthy friendships are very important to your child's development, but peer pressure can become strong during this time. Children who feel good about themselves are more able to resist negative peer pressure and make better choices for themselves. This is an important time for children to gain a sense of responsibility along with their growing independence. Also, physical changes of puberty might be showing by now, especially for girls. Another big change children need to prepare for during this time is starting middle or junior high school.