We don't put up with the neighbor's cat screeching into the night. We don't put up with the neighbor's dog going through our garbage. We don't put up with local politicians caught with their hands in the cookie jar. But we can live with a U.S President who actively obstructs the Commission assigned to get to the bottom of the 9/11 attacks.

The 9/11 Commission gave us a readable account of the terror attacks. But it had to pull teeth to get the Bush administration to cooperate. The administration would not turn over records and the President did not want to answer any questions. The chairmen of the 9/11 Commission have now published a book explaining what happened during the investigation. The following is excerpted from the New York Times Book Review:

The most comprehensive examination of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was conducted by the 9/11 Commission, chaired by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton. Now Kean, a former governor of New Jersey, and Hamilton, a former congressman from Indiana, have written "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission." . . . The book offers little new information on the actual attacks, but provides a keyhole view of the commission's bureaucratic war with a White House obsessed with secrecy and control. Months after the commission's creation, the staff was still battling the White House and the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee to get a look at an earlier 9/11 investigation by Congress, the Joint Inquiry report, protected under a dubious claim of "congressional privilege." "This was frustrating," the exasperated Kean and Hamilton complain, "particularly since we were a creation of Congress." They add, "We were hung up with both Congress and the Bush administration over the documents that were mandated to be the starting point of our investigation." Things only got worse.

The man standing at the gate was Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel and now the attorney general. In public, George W. Bush was a president deeply concerned about getting to the bottom of the most deadly attack on American soil in the country's history. But in private, he ordered his lawyer to throw up every roadblock possible. In shirtsleeves behind the coffee table of his second-floor West Wing office, Gonzales spoke to the members of the commission as if they were bringing an insurance claim. "He never referred to the president by name or title," Kean and Hamilton report, "but rather always said 'client' — 'Let me take this back to my client,' or 'I've got to protect my client.'" The biggest battle came over access to the White House morning intelligence report, the President's Daily Brief, especially the one dated Aug. 6, 2001, barely a month before the attack. Titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," the document noted that the F.B.I. was investigating suspicious Qaeda activity on American soil "consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." When finally asked to provide the commission with his own testimony, the president said at first that he could spare only an hour of his time — and then with just the two chairmen. Later it was made clear that no recordings or transcripts would be permitted.

. . .

The White House gave in to the demand to meet with the full membership, but there was no way the president was going to testify publicly, or under oath. In fact, he insisted that he and Vice President Dick Cheney appear together, a move that led many skeptics to speculate that they wanted to ensure they kept their stories straight. Because of the insistence on secrecy, whatever was said in the room was largely lost to history.

So, the President would not turn over important documents. The administration did not want the 9/11 Commission see the smoking gun: an August 6, 2001 memo given to the President that said Bin Laden wanted to attack inside the United States and that terrorists were surveilling buildings in New York City. We know that Bush was on vacation when he read this memo and told the guy who presented him with the smoking gun that he "covered your ass now." As Newsweek reminds us:

as Ron Suskind wrote at the beginning of his recent book, "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11" (Simon & Schuster). Panicked CIA analysts flew to Texas to brief Bush personally in 2001, "to intrude on his vacation with face-to-face alerts." Bush sized them up, as is his wont, looking to judge the content of what they told him by the confidence with which the message was delivered. Bush wasn't convinced. "All right," said the president, "You've covered your ass now."

Three weeks later, we suffer the worst terror attacks on U.S. soil in our history. It's no wonder Bush and Co. did not want the Commission to see this memo. The question would be: Mr. President, with all due respect, how did you respond to this memo? Why did you not return to Washington to deal with this threat? What were you doing in Texas at the ranch in the afternoon, after you read this memo? Did you consider issuing an Executive Order that would lock down the airports and put the airlines on alert?

Questions like this would shed light on how the administration was taking care to protect the homeland. But when Bush finally answered the 9/11 Commission's questions, he would not do so without Dick Cheney in the room, and he would not answer questions under oath.

Bill Clinton was impeached because he falsely answered questions under oath about a sexual relationship. But George W. Bush was re-elected even though he would not answer questions under oath about the darkest day in U.S. history. Which is worse? You know damn well which is worse.