The January 6 Report Is a Lot Less Readable Than the September 11 Report

They focused this one on TV, not literature.

As a general rule, I don’t tend to read a lot of government reports. They’re long, they’re dull, they’re full of footnotes, I’m too busy playing Uno on my phone … lots of reasons. But I read “The 9/11 Commission Report” cover to cover. The purposefully bland cover and deceptively pedantic subtitle “Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” give you the idea that the report is boring, but it is anything but. It’s organized and full of facts, sure, but it’s also riveting prose, a clear narrative that firmly establishes what led the attacks, what happened during the attacks and what we could do (and, one might say, did do) to help prevent further attacks in the future. I swear, when it came out, I read it in one sitting.

How riveting was “The 9/11 Commission Report?” They made both a movie and an outstanding (and best-selling) graphic novel out of it. You could sit down to read it right now and be drawn back into it, immediately.

I am sad to say that “The January 6 Report,” which was released in paperback this week, has no such thrills. There’s an excellent opening essay by The New Yorker’s David Remnick, and a mournful epilogue by Congressman Jamie Raskin…