Democrats served notice that they will try to deny Bush an opportunity to rebuild his terrorism credentials and that they will do this by fighting for more expeditious action on the recommendations -- an unusual proposition three months before the election. Former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta complained that GOP leaders "have promised no action on the recommendations until after the November elections." He added: "Americans deserve that this report be taken seriously and acted on without delay and with bipartisan support."

I support the recommendations you have made for making our nation as safe as it should be. You said Thursday that we look back so that we can look forward. I agree, and I share the Commission's view that America must act now, without delay. A number of the recommendations can be implemented directly by the President, while others will require legislation. I offer my full support for immediate action and will work with you to implement the recommendations.

Your Commission has provided an excellent roadmap to make our nation as safe as we can be and now we must work out the details in a bipartisan manner that lets us accomplish our goal of defeating the terrorists and protecting our nation.

Certainly, our intelligence operations need improving. ... On the other hand, this call to do something right this instant gives me the creeps. The 9/11 Commission has, after all, recommended the broadest overhaul of U.S. intelligence in five and a half decades, one that will be with us for many decades to come. Every great change generates unintended consequences. Speedy change offers vast potential for more such consequences. For instance, one key recommendation is centralization. That could be beneficial or terrifying. ... Finally, if you're like me and took a dim view of certain aspects of the CIA and our overall intelligence operations long before the failures associated with 9/11, you'll want Congress to make any changes slowly enough that issues such as those brought up in the 1975 Church Committee report are not forgotten.

At issue is not Berger's sense of injustice or embarrassment, or the gotcha game that is being played out by Republicans, or the Democratic establishment's willingness to give Berger the benefit of the doubt because he's one of their own.

The question is, was Sandy Berger's violation due to negligence -- at best -- or was it deliberate -- at worst? And should he be held accountable for his actions? Or is he too important and well-connected to be treated like everyone else? What's the answer, Washington?

This report carries a very simple message for all of America about the security of all Americans: We can do better. ... We must do better, and there's an urgency to our doing better. We have to act now. ... If I am elected president and there still has not been sufficient progress rapidly in these next months on these issues, then I will lead. .... Unfortunately, this administration has had an ongoing war between the State Department, the Defense Department, the White House. ... People have been at odds, everybody knows it, they'll deny it, but everybody does know. And the fact is that it has created a struggle that has delayed our ability to move forward.

President Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, rejected four plans to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, worrying once that if the plans failed and al Qaeda launched a counterattack, "we're blamed." ....

According to the [September 11 Commission] report, the first plan of action against bin Laden presented to Mr. Berger was a briefing by CIA Director George J. Tenet on May 1, 1998. Mr. Berger took no action, the report says, because he was "focused most" on legal questions.  "[Mr. Berger] worried that the hard evidence against bin Laden was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted," the report says.     Mr. Clarke asked Mr. Berger: "Should we pre-empt by attacking [bin Laden's] facilities?" Mr. Berger decided against it, but later that year, Mr. Clinton ordered an attack on a chemical plant in Sudan that was suspected of providing bin Laden with dangerous weapons material.

Another opportunity to strike at bin Laden occurred on Dec. 4, 1999, according to the report, when Mr. Clarke suggested carrying out an attack on an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the last week of the year.     "In the margin next to Clarke's suggestion," the report states in a footnote, "Berger wrote, 'no.'

Finally, in August of 2000, five months before Mr. Clinton left office, Mr. Berger was told that aerial surveillance from a Predator drone suggested another opportunity to kill bin Laden.     Mr. Clarke told Mr. Berger that the imagery captured by the Predator was "truly astounding," and expressed confidence that more missions could find bin Laden. Mr. Berger, however, "worried that a Predator might be shot down, and warned Clarke that such an event would be a 'bonanza' for bin Laden and the Taliban."     "In the memo's margin," the report states, "Berger wrote that before considering action, 'I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.'

The commission's report also notes a speech that Mr. Clinton gave to the Long Island Association on Feb. 15, 2002, in which — in the answer to a query from a member of the audience — he said that Sudan offered to turn over bin Laden to U.S. custody, but Mr. Clinton refused because "there was no indictment" in hand.

Mr. Clinton told the commission in April that he had "misspoken" and was never offered bin Laden.

The Democratic National Committee called the "supposed discovery" of Bush's payroll records late on Friday -- on the eve of the Democratic National Convention -- "highly questionable."

The poll found signs of positive trends for Bush since the June survey. The 54% who say the country is on the wrong track is down from 58% last month; the percentage that says the economy is doing well edged up from 51% last month to 55% now. But both those changes are within the survey's margin of error.

Kerry's lead has also dwindled since June. In the new survey, he leads Bush by 48% to 46% in a two-way matchup; last month he led by 7 percentage points. In a three-way contest, Kerry now draws 46%, Bush 44% and Nader 3%; last month, Kerry held a 6-percentage-point lead in this matchup.

It was an indictment without a defendant. Bush praised the report yesterday morning, and by afternoon was describing its recommendation as consistent with his policies. Underneath its everyone's-to-blame veneer, the report includes some weighty assertions that are potentially very damaging to the White House. The report, for instance, criticizes the concept of the "war on terror" that has been the signature issue of Bush's presidency. It concludes that what is required to defeat Islamist terrorism is something more nuanced than that. And it does not support the argument that the war on Iraq was either related to or helpful in that quest.

This report carries a very simple message for all of America about the security of all Americans: We can do better. ... We must do better, and there's an urgency to our doing better. We have to act now. ... If I am elected president and there still has not been sufficient progress rapidly in these next months on these issues, then I will lead. .... Unfortunately, this administration has had an ongoing war between the State Department, the Defense Department, the White House. ... People have been at odds, everybody knows it, they'll deny it, but everybody does know. And the fact is that it has created a struggle that has delayed our ability to move forward.

Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, was more circumspect in his response to the report ... Mr. Edwards praised the "bipartisan nature" of the commission's work, then called on Mr. Bush to act immediately on those recommendations that could be accomplished by executive order, and for Congress to work on the rest. "We had thousands of Americans who lost their lives on Sept. 11,'' Mr. Edwards said, "and it is very important for us, those of us in positions of responsibility, to pay the greatest tribute we can pay to them, which is to take action and reform our intelligence operations."

The fault was Ronstadt's. Her voice seemed small and uncertain, and she was unable to move from her strong, rock­belter's low register to her silvery high notes without shifting gears awkwardly in her uncertain middle range, where most of Mimi's singing is done. It seems doubtful that her deficiencies are readily curable.

[Ejecting Ms. Ronstadt] from the premises ... assumes that Ms. Ronstadt had no right to express a political opinion from the stage. It implies - for some members of the audience at least - that there is a philosophical contract that says an artist must entertain an audience only in the ways that audience sees fit. It argues, in fact, that an artist like Ms. Ronstadt does not have the same rights as everyone else.

Perhaps her praise for Mr. Moore, even at the very end of her show, did ruin the performance for some people. They have a right to voice their disapproval - to express their opinion as Ms. Ronstadt expressed hers and to ask for a refund. But if their intemperate behavior began to worry the management, then they were the ones who should have been thrown out and told never to return, not Ms. Ronstadt, who threatened, after all, only to sing.

Senator Bill Frist's suggestion that Mr. Clarke might be charged with perjury may have been his own idea. But his move reminded everyone of the White House's reaction to revelations by the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: an immediate investigation into whether he had revealed classified information. The alacrity with which this investigation was opened was, of course, in sharp contrast with the administration's evident lack of interest in finding out who leaked the identity of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame to Bob Novak.

... the Court holds that the state is entitled, but not required, to protect its, the unborn child's, interest. The reason for the entitlement is that the fetus is now capable of an independent life outside the mother. But the problem is, why should not the claims of the fetus [between viability and birth] be sufficiently strong to require, and not merely to permit, the state to intervene for its protection? After the Court expressed such firm views on the proper balance [between the claims of the woman against those of the fetus] until the onset of viability, it gave no explanation why the state must be allowed to make its own choice after that time."