Monday, April 12, 2004
By Golly, If They'd Only Faxed Us the Specifics He'd Have RACED back to Washington
President Bush is satisfied that he did all he could to prevent 9/11--and many, many partisan Republican hacks agree completely with him, despite all evidence to the contrary. From A.P.:
Sure, the CIA knew senior al Qaeda operatives were in the country, sure FBI field agents were reporting to Washington that strange Arab men were taking flight lessons and didn't want to learn how to land, sure the White House's chief of counter-terrorism was jumping up and down for months warning about al Qaeda, sure CIA director George Tenet told the president every day that they were hearing "increased chatter", and sure, a month before the attacks the president got a daily briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." that warned specifically about hijackings -- but if the memo didn't have the exact day and targets, what could the President of the United States possibly have done?
Besides, he was on vacation.
The fact that all the above is true -- and that for two years the White House denied it -- is easily explained: it's all partisan attacks from Bush haters who don't understand that reelecting George Bush is far more important that discovering how the worst attack on American soil in history took place, and whether or not steps are taken to prevent it from happening again.
To review:
If the question is whether a Democratic president committed a sexual indiscretion in a period of unprecedented prosperity, then it's proper to spend $40 million in tax dollars to catch him in a lie about it. But if the question is how George Bush's government failed to prevent 9/11 despite mounting evidence and specific warnings of an impending attack, then, well, we really should be looking forward to the future, and not trying to assign blame.
Got it?
The memo specifically told Bush that al-Qaida operatives had reached American shores, had a support system in place and were engaging in "patterns of suspicious activity ... consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks."A surprise to who? Who thought she was telling the truth?
The memo's contents are somewhat of a surprise because for two years, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice starting with a May 2002 news conference left the impression that the document focused on historical information and that any current threats mostly involved overseas targets.
Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat on the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, saw as significant the memo's references to May 2001 intelligence about a possible al-Qaida explosives plot inside the United States.Yeah, c'mon. I mean, if the memo had said something like, "The Terrorists called the FBI this morning and told them what day, time, and flights they had in mind" then of course President Bush would have done something to stop them. But without that kind of specific information, what could he possibly have done?
The "leadership at the top," he said Sunday, should have "butted heads together, get them in the same room, and then pulse the agencies: 'What do you know?' Get all of your agents out there with messages to say, 'Tell us everything you know at this moment."'
To Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., however, the memo should have created a sense of urgency.
"If you are having a brief that is entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.,' and then it lays out specific things ... you would think that that would raise enough caution flags that you would haul in the FBI, that you'd put out an all-points bulletin," he said.
Slade Gorton, a Republican on the commission, said the memo "did talk about potential attacks in the United States," but "it didn't give the slightest clue as to what they would be or where they would be."
Sure, the CIA knew senior al Qaeda operatives were in the country, sure FBI field agents were reporting to Washington that strange Arab men were taking flight lessons and didn't want to learn how to land, sure the White House's chief of counter-terrorism was jumping up and down for months warning about al Qaeda, sure CIA director George Tenet told the president every day that they were hearing "increased chatter", and sure, a month before the attacks the president got a daily briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." that warned specifically about hijackings -- but if the memo didn't have the exact day and targets, what could the President of the United States possibly have done?
Besides, he was on vacation.
The fact that all the above is true -- and that for two years the White House denied it -- is easily explained: it's all partisan attacks from Bush haters who don't understand that reelecting George Bush is far more important that discovering how the worst attack on American soil in history took place, and whether or not steps are taken to prevent it from happening again.
To review:
If the question is whether a Democratic president committed a sexual indiscretion in a period of unprecedented prosperity, then it's proper to spend $40 million in tax dollars to catch him in a lie about it. But if the question is how George Bush's government failed to prevent 9/11 despite mounting evidence and specific warnings of an impending attack, then, well, we really should be looking forward to the future, and not trying to assign blame.
Got it?
