Gorelick kept her questions tightly focused on summer

2001 and homed in on communications break-downs between FBI field

offices and FBI headquarters (as opposed to between FBI intel division

and FBI criminal division). Pickard was polite, and confined his

answers to the questions, resisting whatever urge he may have had to say

“Well, let’s talk about why we don’t communicate effectively . . .”

Again, the point is not that Gorelick’s questions shouldn’t be asked;

it’s that choosing to ask some questions and not others in the limited

time a commissioner gets reflects a value judgment about what’s

important. We shouldn’t be in a position of having to wondering

whether, in Gorelick’s case, its a dispassionate value judgment.