It was perfectly predictable that in the aftermath of terror
          attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the
                             search for political scapegoats would be as
                             intense as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
                             It was just as obvious that Bill Clinton
                             would quickly become the favorite quarry
                             of this quest–particularly among the former
          President’s old adversaries in the national media and the
          Republican Party (two entities which often seem to be locked
          in a mind-meld these days).

          There’s another convenient place where these worthies might
          look for culprits but never do: the mirror. Whatever the various
          failures and flaws of Mr. Clinton’s tenure may have been, his
          efforts against terrorism compare favorably with the frivolous
          preoccupations of his critics.

          As articulated by America’s foremost analysts, the general
          complaint is that the Clinton administration "didn’t do enough"
          to forestall the atrocities of Sept. 11. This deep insight is a
          truism: Al Qaeda’s suicide operatives achieved their mission
          despite any and all measures taken by the government to frustrate and destroy the
          bin Laden network. Those measures, which were hardly insignificant, were by
          definition not "enough."

          That simple notion was at the heart of The New York Times’ Dec. 30 investigative
          report, a long disquisition whose front-page headline conveyed its slant: "Planning
          for Terror But Failing to Act." The facts and quotes accumulated by reporters
          Judith Miller, Don Van Natta Jr. and Jeff Gerth didn’t quite justify that damning
          summary.

          The Times reporters appeared to be laboring under the assumption that Mr. Clinton
          could have mustered a full-scale unilateral invasion of Afghanistan to capture the Al
          Qaeda leadership–at a time when the Congressional majority was seeking to
          impeach him. But if that naïve fantasy is discounted, it is clear even in The Times’
          account that the Clinton administration made many attempts to strike lethally at Mr.
          bin Laden. And the fact that Mr. Clinton took terrorism very seriously would have
          been clearer still if The Times had mentioned the enormous increases he approved
          in counter terrorism spending by the F.B.I. and other federal agencies.

          Speaking of the F.B.I., the Times story neglected another prominent name that
          scarcely passes the lips of those seeking to apportion blame. That would the
          bureau’s former director Louis Freeh, a bungler who has become virtually invisible
          since September. In an article that highlighted several paragraphs of preening
          recollection from Dick Morris, that’s an odd omission.

          The indefatigable consultant evidently convinced the Times reporters that, based on
          polling done in 1996, he strenuously urged his Presidential client to federalize airport
          security and prosecute a "broader war on terrorism." Mr. Morris didn’t reveal this
          prescient proposal anywhere in the 340-plus pages of Behind the Oval Office, his
          memoir of his years advising Mr. Clinton, which scarcely mentions terrorism at all.

          If Mr. Morris did foresee the horrors to come five years ago, he was quite alone in
          his clairvoyance. More likely he is rewriting history to denigrate his old boss and
          inflate himself, an important duty of his current career. In truth, he has been heavily
          preoccupied during the past several years by smut and petty scandal, not by the
          looming "terrorist threat." And in those obsessions, he wasn’t alone at all.

          The pundits and personalities who now assign responsibility to Mr. Clinton might as
          well interrogate themselves about the failure of news organizations to focus on the
          problem of terror (and, for that matter, on broader international issues); that is a
          subject, after all, about which they know a lot.

          Not all are equally culpable. Several reporters on the Times staff, for example, did
          outstanding work long before Sept. 11. But as independent broadcaster Simon
          Marks recalls in Quill, the journal of the Society of Professional Journalists, the
          failure was general. Most American reporters and commentators were far more
          interested in Chandra Levy than Osama bin Laden.

          In a remarkable passage, Mr. Marks notes that both Reuters and United Press
          International ran dispatches last June about Al Qaeda plans to attack the United
          States. Hard to believe, but true–and wholly ignored by every significant news outlet
          in the country. Most of them were too busy frying Gary Condit to notice.

          Harold Evans makes a similar argument in the November/December issue of the
          Columbia Journalism Review, in which he examines the decision by the major
          media to ignore repeated warnings from the U.S. Commission on National Security
          of a terrorist assault on American shores. The former Senators who chaired the
          commission, Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, were stunned when only a handful of
          newspapers bothered to feature their findings.

          "The Hart-Rudman Report is the kind that required elite opinion to engage in a
          sustained dialogue to probe, improve, explain, and then press for action. None of
          the network talk shows took it up," laments Mr. Evans. "But the commissioners
          were particularly bewildered by the blackout at The New York Times."

          You may reach Joe Conason via email at: jconason@observer.com.