On the 11th anniversary of 9-11, there was not a single mention of the attacks on the front page of the New York Times. In fact, there were just two local news stories related to the attacks in the entire Tuesday edition, one on delays in opening the site museum, the other on how some towns in New Jersey were scaling back annual memorial ceremonies. (The paper did put another threat to New York City on the front page: "New York Is Lagging as Seas And Risks, Rise, Critics Warn.")

The only other 9-11 coverage, as Mark Finkelstein noted on Newsbusters this morning, was "The Deafness Before the Storm," an op-ed by Kurt Eichenwald, a former Times reporter with a book out on the aftermath of the attacks ("500 Days"), blaming former President George W. Bush for ignoring warnings that Osama bin Laden was readying an attack on the United States.

For the New York Times, what better way to observe the 11th anniversary of 9-11 than by exploiting it for political purposes and seeking to blame George W. Bush?

The Times chose to publish on its op-ed page today a column by Kurt Eichenwald, a former Times reporter now with Vanity Fair, entitled "The Deafness Before the Storm."  Its gruel is thin when it comes to actually assembling a case of any real Bush-administration negligence.  And that is the best evidence that Eichenwald and the Times were not motivated by any sincere desire to review the historical record with the goal of preventing future lapses.  Rather, this is cheap political exploitation and finger-pointing at its basest. More after the jump.