Search

Discusses the report about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the U.S.. Analysis of the report and its style; Unimpressive aspect of the commission's analysis and recommendations; Consistency of the report.

To the Editor: Two of the misleading impressions left by Jonathan Mahler's review of my book ''The Rights of the People'' (June 12) deserve clarification. My research was framed less by my first thought on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 -- ''There go our civil liberties'' -- than by my more nuanced second thought, as explained in sentences that followed immediately: ''It was a rash prediction, I knew, and I quickly re-formed it into a question about how firmly we would hold our liberties in such a time of testing, whether the Bill of Rights would sustain us. I figured there would be deterioration, but how much?'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several letters to the editor in response to articles published in previous issues including "Name Check," in the September 16, 2007 issue, "The Iranian Time Bomb," in the September 9, 2007 issue, and "Revisiting the Canon Wars," in the September 16, 2007 issue.