Well, the August 6 PDB has been declassified and released, and not at all surprisingly (unless you happen to be a frothing partisan with a wildly conspiratorial imagination, in which case you were expecting Mossad surveillance photos of Todd Beamer) there’s nothing much to it. Richard Ben Veniste knew this, too — even as he tried using it to embarrass the Administration on national television. Because that’s the kind of grandstanding nerd he is.
But don’t take my word for it. Read it yourself. For the record, though, here’s what those barking rightwing warmongers at CNN have to say:
The memo includes intelligence on al Qaeda threats as recent as three months before the attacks.
Much of the intelligence was uncorroborated, and nothing in the memo points directly to the September 11 attacks.
Wow. You don’t say.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Update: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. And Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I think my post title was more clever. You know, it’s not everyone who works in a Jane’s Addiction reference on a post. OK, so maybe it is, at least among bloggers over the age of 25. No matter.
Yes, but I worked in Todd Beamer and Mossad. Had I thrown in a hot pastrami sandwich I’d have completed the trifecta. And don’t think I couldn’t have done it, either.
Gentlemen
Has it occured to you – that when you say that this PDB is a big snooooooze—What you are telling the world that if information like this comes to the Presidents desk today – that – hey – it is OK ignore it—go fishing—have a couple more days vacation???
Are you crazy—would it not be more adult if we all had a little more sense of the danger that is still there from Osama bin Laden. For Republicans to act this unconcerned is scary—you are going to lose Republican votes this way.
Sara
I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sara. None. Not even a little bit. And I suspect you don’t, either.
The yawn here is directed toward anyone who thought this PDB was some sort of smoking gun, or admission that the Bushies knew before hand that Al Qaeda was planning on flying airliners into the WTC.
It’s Saturday night. Have a beer or something.
Sara, go read Greg Easterbrook’s alternate timeline.
A sort of what if Bush took direct action on vague threats. Tell me you would not have made the argument that left makes in his alternate timeline. Tell me that with a straight face.
Now , consider your thoughts now and tell us you are not a hypocrite.
Yes, more beer.
Any fool can plainly see from that memo the exact time and date of the skyjacking, the targets and the points of impact.
Any fool is, right now, blogging and talkshow calling with just that information.
Hi, Sara.
The whole point of the PDB kerfuffle, the Rice testimony, the demand that Bush publicly testify, the demand thst Bush and Cheney submit to a polygraph in the nude on the White House Lawn, and all the other demands is to “prove” that the administration “has something to hide”. This has gone beyond rediculous.
How interesting that both Clinton or Gore were allowed to NOT testify under oath and NOT appear in public. It was clinton and Gore’s watch for 8 years, Bush’s watch for 8 months (5 of which Al Gore and his democrats were suing and slowing down his governement, so 3 months). Why should they be allowed a mulligan over all this?
This is the archetypal storm-in-a-teacup. With one bound, Georgie was freeeee! Condi’s polling well, and most of the rest of this stuff is way too inside baseball. Come November, this will only play positively for Bush, assuming that the goldfish memories of John Q. Public can even recall Richard Clarke’s name by then. I’m not saying the Average Joe is stupid, but the level of interest most PW readers have in politics is an order of magnitude greater than normal. We’re freaks.
Bush seems to be a master of the Braer Rabbit technique – puuleeze, massah, don’t make mizzzz rice testify, puuleeze, don’t give that memo to the newzzzpapers, and the Dems fall for it every time.
Having Clinton or Gore testify under oath is likely to bring on a lot of trouble for the Republic.
It’d be useless, too.
sure, then what is the point of where the 911 commission is?