The November Surprises

Just as Bush Senior helped postpone the October release of American hostages in 1980, putting himself and Ronald Reagan in the White House on virtually the day of their release, Bush II has stockpiled crises, equating democracy with delay. As quiet as it is kept, John Ashcroft has been sitting for months now on the final chapter of The 9/11 Commission Report, a 70-page examination of everything from the Federal Aviation Commission's missteps that morning to the orders issued by Bush and Cheney. Similarly, Ashcroft's appointee Patrick Fitzgerald is now in the 14th month of a grand jury probe of who in the White House leaked the name of a covert CIA agent married to a Bush critic. Fitzgerald's pre-election targets have, conveniently enough, only been reporters.