Is the 9/11 Commission partisan...or are GOP folks bracing for bad news?
The Times latches on to what I am increasingly seeing as GOP talking points- that the 9/11 Commission is on a partisan witchhunt. The current buzz is the extent to which the commissioners talk about their proceedings.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a Republican who worked as a lawyer for the Warren Commission, which investigated the Kennedy assassination, said in an interview this week that it had operated like a jury. "When a jury goes out, you don't give a report in midstream on what you're doing, expressing opinions," Mr. Specter said. In the case of the Sept. 11 commission, he added, "Speaking so freely to the press while they're in midstream tends to politicize it when they come to their conclusions."

Never mind that Chairman Kean said, "We made a conscious decision, and part of it was under strong pressure from the families, to make this commission as transparent and as visible as possible."
Of course, it goes both ways:

Late last month, John F. Lehman, a Republican commissioner, said of Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who has said the Bush administration did not take his warnings about terrorism seriously before the attacks, "I think he has a credibility problem."

Here is the Times' last few graphs:

The New York Post published a front-page editorial titled "National Disgrace" on Wednesday, criticizing as "sewn from whole cloth" a staff briefing paper that the newspaper said "paints a picture of alarm bells going off throughout Washington in the months before 9/11."

Last week, Senator Mitch McConell, Republican of Kentucky, charged from the Senate floor that the commission, made up of five Democrats and five Republicans, had "become a political casualty of the electoral hunting season." Mr. McConnell did not respond to requests for comment. The senator's remarks helped to persuade the commission leaders to urge their colleagues to tamp down any partisanship at the hearings, people close to the panel said.

But that did not stop Mr. Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, who said: "Mitch McConnell is the Republican whip of the Senate and he's accusing us of being too partisan? He can go to hell for all I'm concerned."

Mr. Kerrey said the tough questioning and the television and print appearances had helped shake loose information from the White House that would not have otherwise been released.

Acknowledging that, Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was on President Bill Clinton's national security staff, said that since this is an election year, "the commission ought to be well aware that too much public exposure will feed suspicion by those who are already so inclined of the commission's political motivation."

Mr. Kean said even if he wanted to avoid the news media, it would be next to impossible in the age of the major 24-hour news networks. "People are going to be talking about us anyway," he said. "We would rather have the commission talking about us rather than talking heads."

I guess it is only fair that the Times is reporting this- as it is increasingly becoming a must-push story in GOP News--note that the damning front page opinion piece comes from...shock...the NY Post.
As to the Commission's partisanship- I will withhold ultimate judgement. The Panel is made up of folks from both political camps, with histories and undeniable pre-made assumptions.
However, I also think it would be wise for those asserting that the Commission is now blinded by partisanship to withold judgement. We have merely seen public hearings- which is to say, a fraction of what the Commission has done. There are many possibilities. They may be trying to aggressively question everyone before them in order to get at the Truth behind all the spin. They may be partisan and mean.
One thing to remember- these folks are looking day in and day out at a huge pile of material entirely dealing with the intel and structure of government before 9/11. It is quite possible that, in this world of information, they are increasingly dismayed that these various pieces were never connected (by either administration). Perhaps their aggressive questioning is a result of this.
In any event, I am concerned that a backlash is being made prematurely- and that, for some, the backlash against the commission is a defense against possible negative conclusions coming from the commission. And as we all know- the Clinton Admin has nothing to lose- But Bush..who is making 9/11 and terrorism-fghting the center of his campaign, has everything to lose. It is no doubt Bush Supporters will be ready to knock down a Commission giving their man bad news...even if the bad news is shared between him and Clinton.

Kevin Drum has more.