Woodward was interviewed at length on NPR yesterday, and admitted that, vis-a-vis the Rice-Tenet meeting that's the breathless headliner, Rice is telling the truth that she told Tenet, and the 9/11 Commission, and everybody else, that Tenet was telling her all the time that they were expecting an Al Qaeda attack, but zero information as to who, what, when, where, or how.
It's not news. I am sure you recall, at the time, stories about "our hair was standing up" over the warnings because they were simply too vague to follow.
To my mind, the blame for 9/11 isn't to be laid at the feet of Clinton, or Bush, or Rice, but on Congress, which decreed separation of national and international intelligence agencies in 1975, post Watergate. (Democrats passed these laws when they controlled Congress but Republicans never overrode them when they controlled Congress.)
File under "the doctrine of unintended consquences," aka "Things That Come Back to Bite You On the Ass for $500, Alex."
As for Bush sugar-coating Iraq, that's his nature. He's a sugar-coater. Kerry and Gore are vinegar-spreaders.
America likes sugar-coaters. Bill Clinton's a sugar-coater. |
