Words owner Jonah Zimiles wore a red tie for his store's presentation by former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, a Republican. Although Zimiles said it wasn't purposeful, the gesture was not needed.

Kean seems to be one of the few political figures in the country who is dedicated to bipartisanship and whose opinions expressed throughout the night fell in both the "red" and "blue" columns.

Kean first described his experience as chair of the 911 Commission. No one wanted the Commission, Kean said. Not the executive branch, not the Congress. There was no money for the Commission, but, he said, the families of the victims lobbied hard. The Commission, which was appointed in 2002, got down to work as the nation "headed into the most partisan election ever."

"We were set up to fail," said Kean. But Kean reached out to his vice chair Lee Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholarship at Princeton University, and together they pledged to leave politics outside the door. 

Kean and Hamilton appeared together on the talk show circuit and made sure that other Commission members were similarly paired with members of the opposite party. Even in Commission meetings, Kean insisted that no Democrat sat beside a Democrat, and no Republican sat beside a Republican. "They thought I was some crazy school teacher," Kean said of his insistence that Commission members literally rearrange their chairs. 

Further, Kean gave this advice on how he made the Commission work: "It works because you give up the credit to someone else. You go to each other's houses. When you get to know each other as human beings," said Kean, you cannot demonize each other. 

Kean then got down to the business of discussing national security. "The United States government had failed on almost every level," the governor explained. The intelligence agencies had failed to share information with each other, he said, adding that there aren't just the FBI and the CIA but 17 different intelligence agencies. However, "they were all silos." Coming out of the Commission, Congress enacted changes that were meant to address this problem. The Director of National Intelligence position was created and the new umbrella group, the U.S. Intelligence Community. "It was all about sharing information." 

In light of the Ft. Hood shootings and the so-called "underpants" bomber, what went wrong?

"They're not deliberately not sharing," said Kean. But the results nonetheless could be equally disastrous. "This guy [the underpants bomber] has done us a wonderful favor. We were asleep at the wheel. This administration had taken its eye off the ball, and I believe they are making the right corrections."

Kean also explained that the government is dealing with a lot of information. "More than 500,000 bits of information can come in on a single day. More comes in in a week that can be contained in the Library of Congress." 

Kean said that the mistakes were not the fault of agents. "We need more anaylsts," he said. "It was a failure of analysis." And, Kean said, analysts need recognition and motivation. 

Kean also said that so much information that is classified "doesn't need to be and really, really shouldn't be."

Kean said that the nature of terroristic threats is changing. Al Queda is no longer as centralized. "Al Queda has morphed into these small organizations in Yemen, Somalia and the jungles of the Philippines with not much connection to the main Al Queda leadership."

Kean said Al Queda is also looking to recruit more blond-haired, blue-eyed foot soldiers, and that he and Hamilton are now working on addressing homegrown terrorism, which he thinks is also a future trend. (Later, Kean said that this effort with Hamilton, the National Security Preparedness Center, has secured funding from the Carnegie Foundation and is looking for support from two or three more foundations. The group of ten includes some of the "top people" on terrorism including Tom Ridge and writer Steve Flynn.)

Kean talked of one 911 Commission recommendation that was not adopted by Congress: reforming Congress. He described the fact that Congressional oversight of counter-terrorism efforts is dysfunctional because Congress does not control counter-terrorism funding. In addition, Congressional oversight is cumbersome and balkanized. Janet Napolitano recently complained to Kean that she must report to 85 Congressional committees and that she and her staff spend fully one-third of their time testifying and preparing to testify before Congress—"instead of doing their job and keeping people safe," said Kean.

When the questions came, Kean addressed the wars in Iraq ("Frankly, I was not a supporter") and Afghanistan ("Since the time of Alexander the Great, no one has successfully occupied Afghanistan") and airport security ("Our system is not designed to have people with machines at airports as the first line of defense"), border control (the Canadian border is particularly worrisome), holding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial in New York ("I'm very against it") and the Supreme Court's recent decision on campaign contributions ("Money is the cancer on politics").

Closer to home, Kean talked about New Jersey's budget woes. "The state has run out of money. We papered over it" and "phonied up budgets in both parties," said Kean. "I would love to see a solution but without economic recovery it's going to take years."

"I think we are going to be shocked at the things that we have been accustomed to, like and need and we are not going to have anymore."

Zimiles mentioned that heavily Democratic Maplewood voted big time for Corzine and that many in town were worried about what new governor Chris Christie might bring. Could Kean reassure them about Christie?

Kean, who hails from Livingston, then told a story of a speaking at Livingston High School many years ago when he was running for governor. "This kid tells his mother he wants to get into politcs" after hearing Kean speak. "His mother said, 'Get in the car,' and drove him up to my door. I hear this timid knock on the door and it's the young Chris Christie. 'How do I get into politics?' he asked. I put him in the car with me and drove him up to Bergen County" where Kean was giving a campaign speech. 

Kean explained that Christie has an "innate sense of what's right or wrong, doesn't suffer fools gladly which will make dealing with the assembly difficult, has a temper and . . . is enormously birght and used to doing everything himself." 

"I think he's a good guy."

Kean pointed to the "wonderful" gesture that Christie made at his inaugural address, embracing the Democratic state senate and assembly leadership and saying, "We are going to work together."

Outside, Jeanmarie Hargrave complimented Governor Kean for his honesty. Hargrave has watched Kean closely over the last eight years. Her brother T.J. Hargrave perished in the September 11, 2001 attacks (a bench in Ricalton Square bears his name). As a 911 family member, she pushed for the 911 Commission and saw interim reports and drafts of its final report.

Said Hargrave of Kean, "He's a wonderful man."