CAFFERTY: Thank you, Soledad. Ninety-six days is how long it has been since the 9/11 Commission issued its report on how to protect this country from terrorism. And Congress still has been unable to adopt any of the major recommendations. Nada.

Originally, they said they couldn’t possibly act until next year. They said they were much too busy. Of course, they found time then right after that announcement to take six weeks off. Eventually, the House and Senate did pass two bills, but now it looks like they’ll be unable to reconcile the differences before the election next week. And of course, they’ve got to take another recess — two more months. They won’t be back until January of next year.

As usual, Cafferty’s propaganda is an exaggeration in order to “sell” his rant to the viewing public and get them riled up. What it isn’t is accurate. Cafferty had the first part right: CQToday yesterday delivered a eulogy for the bill’s chances of meeting the Nov. 2 goal of completing action, a date that House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) called “an artificial date,” and indicated that they’re looking for a good bill, not a good campaign issue.

What he didn’t have right: Congress will be back in less than three weeks with plans to finish the Intelligence Reform Bill during the lame duck session. Now, concerns do abound, however, about a loss of momentum for the bill when the Congress reconvenes on November 15th with the election (hopefully) two weeks behind them.

Apparently Cafferty isn’t sure his viewers could process that complex bit of information, so as usual, he instead chooses to just go with the old standby of exaggerations and untruths.

If Congress were as accurate as he is, I doubt he’d ignore it.

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Representative Democracy: 1; Cafferty: 0

Roll Call reports that the office of the Attending Physician will donate a new shipment of 3,000 vaccinations to local health organizations, after previously recommending all Members and staff get the vaccinations because of their heavy travel schedule and contact with the public. Congressional leaders are concerned that his recommendation doesn’t jibe with the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendation that the vaccines be limited to high-risk individuals, such as the elderly.

It should be noted that Majority Leader (and rock-star-caliber heart surgeon) Bill Frist (R-TN) gave the same reasoning in advocating the shots in a letter he circulated to his 99 Senate colleagues. In fairness, however, many of the 100 lawmakers do fall in the “senior citizen” category.

Keyes response [transcript later today] was to deride Anchor Soledad O’Brien for quoting and/or fabricating “false polls,” adding that he knows the good people of the State of Illinois will not elect a left-wing liberal who will (among other things) threaten traditional marriage. Despite the fact that he’s polling at 18 percent.

Granted, there are lots of candidates hanging their hat on the public’s concern about “protecting” marriage this cycle, but in Illinois at least, Obama is right to hang his hat on the public’s concern about protecting themselves from crazy.