"Since the end of the Cold War, Soviet aggression had been replaced by a number of particularly venomous threats, from Timothy McVeigh to Osama bin Laden." -- Barbara Olson
Barbara Olson (December 27, 1955 – September 11, 2001) was a lawyer and conservative American television commentator who worked for CNN, Fox News Channel, and several other outlets. She was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 en route to a taping of the television show Politically Incorrect when it was flown into the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks.
"Al Gore seems to have found a great political ploy: Picking up whatever issue he is most vulnerable on and championing the cause. Perhaps he will start to champion perjury statutes and obstruction of justice.""From what we've heard about George W., he has a lot issues that he wants to run on. They're positive. They're good. He thinks he's got a good vision for America.""He decided to plunge on with pardons over the department's objections, or where he knew that there would be objections if he had let career prosecutors know what he was doing.""Hopefully, at some point, people will at least credit the Republicans with carrying out their oversight responsibilities and with pursuing a principled course of action even in the face of everyone's short-attention spans.""I think Gore does have to worry. He is tied to Bill Clinton. We know that there were telephone calls that he made from his office. We know that there were visits to the Buddhist temple.""I think that's going to be an issue: Whether or not voters are going to get more of the same in a Clinton candidacy or whether she really is something unique and has something to offer apart from her husband.""In the mind of Bill Clinton, political considerations outweigh even life-and-death matters of great concern to his own law-enforcement officials, not to mention the nation.""It's difficult to believe that Al Gore was oblivious to the existing laws. He has to respond at some point.""Mistakes were made is something we heard back in '92, and that has sort of been the Clinton administration's mantra. I can't imagine that Al Gore is going to pick up that statement and carry it through the next election.""Of all presidential perks, the pardon power has a special significance. It is just the kind of authority that would attract the special attention of someone obsessed with himself and his own ability to influence events.""Phones rang constantly, as if the White House was conducting some kind of pardon telethon.""The decision that has to be made was whether it was material, whether he knew he was lying under oath, whether he did it willfully. I think that's required of any prosecutor who is charged with an investigation of this.""The mainstream media has chosen their candidates and their issues, and they're not the same as the GOP's. They are going to be painted as the bad guys.""There is one question that I don't think Gary Condit can answer, and that I think is why we all aimed at Gary Condit, besides the fact that he has a relationship."
Olson was born Barbara Kay Bracher in Houston, Texas. (Her older sister, Toni Bracher-Lawrence, has been a member of the Houston City Council since 2004.) She graduated from Waltrip High School and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saint Thomas in Houston.
Olson became a professional dancer, performing with the San Francisco Ballet and the Harkness Ballet in New York City. She switched careers and went to Hollywood to work as an assistant producer for television and movies.
As a newcomer, she achieved a surprising measure of success, working for HBO and Stacey Keach Productions. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. In the early 1990s, she worked as an associate at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering where she did civil litigation for several years before becoming an assistant U.S. attorney. In 1994, she left to work for the United States House of Representatives, becoming chief investigative counsel for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. In that position, she led the Travelgate and Filegate investigations into the Clinton administration. She co-founded the Independent Women's Forum with Rosalie Silberman and Anita K. Blair. She was later a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the Birmingham, Alabama law firm Balch & Bingham.
Her support of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas led to the formation of the Independent Women's Forum, which had its origins in 1991-92, when Mrs. Olson and friend "Ricky" Rosalie Gaull Silberman started an informal network of women who supported the Thomas nomination despite allegations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, a former colleague at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Mrs. Olson also had worked with Thomas at the commission and was a close friend. During his contentious confirmation, she spoke out on his behalf and helped edit The Real Anita Hill,a book by David Brock that savaged Hill and portrayed her charges as a political dirty trick (Brock later recanted his claims and apologized to Hill). The idea for the Independent Women's Forum was to create a high profile group of women who advocated economic liberty, personal responsibility, and political freedom.
She married Theodore Olson in 1996. He went on to successfully represent presidential candidate George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore, which effectively determined the final result of the contested 2000 Presidential election. He subsequently served as United States Solicitor General in the Bush administration.
She was a frequent critic of the Bill Clinton administration and wrote a book about then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton (1999). Olson was working on her second book, The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House (published October 2001) at the time of her death. She was a resident of Great Falls, Virginia.
Olson was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 on her way to a taping of Politically Incorrect in Los Angeles, when it was flown into the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks.
Flight 77 was hijacked at 8:54. At some point between 9:16 and 9:26, Olson called her husband. She reported that the flight had been hijacked, and the hijackers had knives and boxcutters. She further indicated that the hijackers were not aware of her phone call, and that they had put all the passengers in the rear of the plane. About a minute into the conversation, the call was cut off.
Shortly after, Barbara reached her husband again. She reported that the "pilot" had announced that the flight had been hijacked, and asked her husband what she should tell the captain to do. Ted Olson asked for her location and she replied that the aircraft was then flying over houses. Another passenger told her they were traveling northeast. Ted Olson informed Barbara of the two previous hijackings and crashes. She did not display signs of panic at the time. At that point, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
Politically Incorrect host Bill Maher left a panel seat vacant for a week following her death.
The Federalist Society has established the Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lectures, "an annual lecture on limited government and the spirit of freedom",held every November. The first lecture was a eulogy for her by her husband.Subsequent speakers have included Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts.
