The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation by Philip Shenon

As a rule, I write daily newspaper articles that are between 500 and 1,000 words long. And before I go home at night, I print out my work and, with a black pen, cross out each paragraph after I've convinced myself that everything in it is accurate. That usually takes 10 minutes or so. I can go home after every word is blacked out. Even then, I sometimes make a mistake. I tried the same fact-checking technique with the manuscript for ''The Commission,'' a process that took every spare minute of my time last fall. I was blessed with the help of Christopher Mann, my genius research assistant. But unfortunately, a few mistakes still crept into the first edition of the book -- and it's my fault, not Christopher's -- and there's no corrections column for me to turn to. But I do have this website and this blog, and so let me point out a couple of dumb errors in the book that will be corrected in future editions.

Corrections:

Page 165: I got the date wrong for an unflattering quotation from Senator Bob Kerrey about former President Bill Clinton. I wrote that he said it 1992. It was actually first widely reported in 1996, in an interview with Esquire magazine. And Senator Kerrey reports that he actually first said it in 1994, and that it was a reference to a specific dispute with Clinton, not to his larger opinion of the former president. I cited the quotation in suggesting that Senator Kerrey did not like Bill Clinton. In an otherwise flattering review of my book this week (http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com), Senator Kerrey corrected the record: "I do not want to nitpick Mr. Shenon's facts. Commissioners and staff will no doubt see many of things that he gets wrong. For example, in my case he states that it is well known I do not like former President Clinton. Just the opposite is the case. He cites a derogatory statement I made about the president but attributes it to our presidential primary campaign of 1992. I actually said it in December 1994 after the president told a wealthy Texas audience: 'It may surprise you to know that I didn’t want to raise your taxes; Congress made me do it.' Since the Democrats in the Senate had just gone from 57 to 47 in part because we voted for his tax increase, this speech upset me a little and produced the most famous quote of my life: a declaration that Bill Clinton is an 'unusually good liar.'''

Page 335: I wrote that Jamie Gorelick's husband was a pediatrician at Georgetown University Hospital. In fact, he is a famed pulmonary specialist. I caught this mistake before the book went on sale, but after it was printed, and wrote to Ms. Gorelick to apologize.

Amplification:

Page 354: I described the commission's May 2004 public hearing to take testimony from Rudy Giuliani as a ''Giuliani lovefest,'' in which the commission failed to ask tough questions of the former New York City mayor about the city's poor preparations for a terrorist attack. I quoted Richard Ben-Veniste as among the commissioners who offered effusive praise for Giuliani. In fairness to Mr. Ben-Veniste, I should note that he did ask Giuliani a series of probing questions about why the city's emergency radio system failed on 9/11, a key issue for the survivors of the firefighters who died that day. Mr. Ben-Veniste, whose portrayal in this book is very flattering, I believe, also suggests it is unfair to suggest he wanted Lee Hamilton, the commission's ranking Democrat, to lead the commission into ''combat with the Bush White House,'' as I wrote on page 376. The full sentence reads: "Like some of the other Democrats, he found it frustrating to work under Lee Hamilton, who had proved so unwilling to lead the Democrats into combat with the Bush White House.'' Mr. Ben-Veniste argues that he wanted aggressive fact-finding, not "combat.''