Two commission members balked, as did CIA Director John Deutch.

Fearing more political heat, Gore pulled back the draft report. A month later, the final report was issued – one that included requirements that would cost the airlines some money, but, perhaps, save some lives in the future.

The report's requirements included:

* high-tech bomb detectors;
* more training for airport security;
* criminal background checks for security personnel;
* increased canine patrols.

Only one thing was lacking from the report, said the whistleblower – there was no deadline by which those requirements would have to be met. It was open-ended. In other words, it wasn't worth the paper on w...

Two commission members balked, as did CIA Director John Deutch.

Fearing more political heat, Gore pulled back the draft report. A month later, the final report was issued – one that included requirements that would cost the airlines some money, but, perhaps, save some lives in the future.

The report's requirements included:

* high-tech bomb detectors;
* more training for airport security;
* criminal background checks for security personnel;
* increased canine patrols.

Only one thing was lacking from the report, said the whistleblower – there was no deadline by which those requirements would have to be met. It was open-ended. In other words, it wasn't worth the paper on which it was written.

In a meeting with other commission members Feb. 12, 1997, Gore said he would leave room for a dissent by those who opposed the report. But within minutes, Gore was announcing to the president and the public that the report was the work of a unanimous commission. In other words, he lied – again.

In Washington, that might have been the end of the story. Scandals like this often go unnoticed. But one courageous lady, the dissenting member of the commission, Victoria Cummock, filed suit to gain access to files she was denied and for the right to file her dissent.

Who is Mrs. Cummock? She was appointed to the commission by Clinton because her husband was killed in the terrorist downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland. She's the insider. She's the whistleblower. She's the heroine of this story.

All this was chronicled in a Tony Blankley column a year ago – a year and five days before the latest terrorist attack that killed all passengers and all the crew on four airliners a...

In Washington, that might have been the end of the story. Scandals like this often go unnoticed. But one courageous lady, the dissenting member of the commission, Victoria Cummock, filed suit to gain access to files she was denied and for the right to file her dissent.

Who is Mrs. Cummock? She was appointed to the commission by Clinton because her husband was killed in the terrorist downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland. She's the insider. She's the whistleblower. She's the heroine of this story.

All this was chronicled in a Tony Blankley column a year ago – a year and five days before the latest terrorist attack that killed all passengers and all the crew on four airliners as well as thousands on the ground at the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11.

Would any of that death and destruction have been prevented had Gore not crawled into bed with the airline industry thinking only in the short term about potential financial losses, not realizing it might be saving itself from much bigger losses in the future?

I guess we'll never know for sure. But remember this story the next time Al Gore rears his opportunistic political head on the national scene.