Time & Perspective Quote by Richard Ben-Veniste

The line reads like a promise, but it’s really a preemptive defense: Richard Ben-Veniste is trying to build legitimacy in real time, before the ink is even dry. Coming from a lawyer, the phrasing is telling. “Definitive account” borrows the authority of a verdict, not a memoir. It frames the 9/11 Commission’s work as something closer to a final ruling than a contested narrative, even though everyone listening knows the politics around 9/11 were already ferocious.

“Without fear or favor” is courtroom language dressed up as civic virtue. It signals independence while quietly acknowledging the pressures he won’t name: partisan blame, institutional self-protection, and the raw emotional stakes of a national trauma. The subtext is: we’re going to be accused of bias no matter what, so we’re baking impartiality into the brand.

Then he pivots to durability: “something that will last and will survive criticism over time.” That’s less about factual completeness than about future-proofing. He’s speaking to history’s tribunal - journalists, scholars, grieving families, the next administration - and admitting that the report’s real test won’t be release day, but the years of scrutiny that follow.

The kicker is “integrity” paired with “bipartisan report.” Bipartisanship here isn’t kumbaya; it’s a shield. It suggests consensus as a substitute for trust in institutions that had already been rattled. In the post-9/11 context, “bipartisan” also hints at an uncomfortable trade: to produce a unified narrative, some sharper political conclusions may be sanded down. The rhetoric aims to reassure a country that wants certainty, while navigating the reality that certainty is the one thing no commission can actually deliver.