Sen. Graham takes notes. (Florida Photographic Collection)

There's something wildly quixotic about Bob Graham's campaign for the presidency, like running through an afternoon thunderstorm. You know you're going to get wet, but that doesn't mean you can't run a little bit faster --- even if the rain slaps your face a little harder.

George W. Bush seems unbeatable; the pool of Democratic candidates is crowded and cranky; Graham's fund-raising ability has been disappointing. Yet he has been trying to emerge from the storm, and his unique standing among the Democratic candidates may yet be his saving grace.

His position as a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee allows him to speak with clarity and expertise concerning matters of national intelligence, a topic around which storm clouds are gathering.

So it seems that Florida's senior senator has been waiting for lightning to strike. Today's anticipated release of newly declassified findings about intelligence failures surrounding Sept. 11 won't be lightning, exactly. But they may cause thunder.

Although the nearly 900-page report was completed last December, only a summary of its findings was released at that time. More details are expected to be unveiled today.

According to news reports, congressional aides say it will add important details about how the government repeatedly missed clues and opportunities to stop the attacks. For example, intelligence officials briefed the president shortly before the attacks on al-Qaida's plans for an assault on American soil and the terrorist network's interest in using airplanes as weapons. The report is expected to detail how the FBI's top terrorism official and the White House's anti-terrorism czar told a meeting of FBI supervisors in March 2000 that there was a high probability that al-Qaida sleeper cells were working on United States soil.

Unfortunately, large portions of the report remain classified, including a section on Saudi Arabian involvement in the attacks. Curiously, the Bush administration seems willing to appease allies such as Saudi Arabia, yet willing to alienate allies such as France and Germany.

Obviously, there's more to the Saudi Arabia story than meets the eye. But that remains classified. Graham, who was part of the independent commission on the Sept. 11 attacks, said that other potentially embarrassing information has been withheld for political reasons.

So for now, we will probably not get a smoking gun. In fact, the report may not even be the thunder that Graham needs. However, when put into the context of our ongoing conversation about elements of Bush's 2003 State of the Union address that were based on forged documents, a frightening picture could emerge. It will only emerge, however, if all these scattered, seemingly unconnected story lines are put together in a narrative that is clear and unambiguous. And if the right questions are asked: Who forged the documents? What was the motive? When did the White House find out, and who directed the coverup?

Few have the knowledge and the fortitude to tell that story and to ask the right questions. And only one of them is a presidential candidate.

Bob Graham will connect the dots. He will speak on the Sunday morning talk shows and in two-sentence newspaper quotes and on the cable gabfests and in gruesomely long candidates' forums in Iowa and New Hampshire. He may even appear on Fox. He will perform the task of explaining --- in that wonkishly detailed way that he is famous for --- what the administration knew and when it knew it.

But will America listen? Will the senator's narrative resonate? And, perhaps more importantly, where will it lead?

Graham's personal style may not be electrifying, but the substance of this report may have a kind of whistle-blower's energy. By documenting the complicated timeline of intelligence failures, this report could even lead to something much more damaging to Bush than electoral failure.

Last week, Graham said that if Bush knew a statement in his State of the Union speech was inaccurate, he would be guilty of misleading the American people in the run-up to the Iraq war. Graham hasn't called for Bush's impeachment, but he has pointed out that if Bush lied, it would be "more serious" than Clinton's personal transgressions.

You're probably familiar with that old expression "Where there's smoke, there's fire." Well, if the Bush administration's statements and explanations of the now-infamous 16 words are any indication, there's a whole lot of fire somewhere.

And lightning hasn't even struck. Yet.

Mike Pope is letters editor of the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at 599-2173 or mpope@tallahassee.com.