The three network morning shows all hyped the new book by Ron Suskind, The One Percent Solution — naturally, on one level, because it charges that al-Qaeda plotted a New York City subway gas attack for 2003, but pulled back. (It’s also a natural plug for CBS, since the book is published by CBS sister company Simon & Schuster.)

But NBC’s exclusive interview with Ron Suskind on Today sent a clear signal that once again, Suskind whacks away at the administration in this book (just as he did in his book The Price of Loyalty with disgruntled Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill). Lauer set up Suskind by noting that Suskind thinks our current homeland-security system is a “joke” — so, uh, why did al-Qaeda not attack? Suskind thinks Dick Cheney runs the structure that President Bush operates under, and that the structure is tremendously flawed.

Perhaps the most predictable angle of the morning was CBS cornering Chuck Schumer so that he could make the expected parochial attack: see, New York should never have reduced homeland-security funding. CBS wouldn’t think of asking Schumer whether al-Qaeda refused to attack because the administration’s defenses might just be described as occasionally adequate.