Early to rise, early to bed
Makes a man, healthy, wealthy, and dead. Or so Terry Pratchett tells us.
The weather, as of about five minutes ago...
Desktop is off of Digital Blasphemy. I seem to recall the guy who runs that used to work at ACT in Iowa City, even. But I could be wrong.
I haven't had a chance to read the 9/11 report yet. Other people have done so. However, it seems to me that Bush is going to "study" it, rather than read it. Given that nobody in the Bush administration can ever be wrong about anything, I can't imagine he'll take it too seriously. After all, he was too busy in August of 2001 to read a memo titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S.
An Altercation reader gives us a useful timeline:
Would you please remind your readers of the history of the 9/11 investigation.
1. Unsupported by the Bush administration, acceptance of the investigation was forced by grieving family members of individuals that lost their lives to the horror of 9/11.
2. Bush, in an attempt to sandbag the process, names Henry Kissinger to lead the commission.
3. Family members counter the Bush administration's attempts to sandbag by pushing for disclosures from Kissinger on his clients that leads to his resignation.
4. The Bush administration plays politics with the commission's deadlines, before giving in to the committee's request for more time.
5. The Bush administration claims Executive Privilege in an attempt to keep Rice, Cheney and Bush from testifying.
6. The administration gives in to public pressure and allows Rice to testify under oath. Rice's testimony leads to the most memorable soundbite of the hearings: Bush had been given a report on August 6, 2001, entitled, "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United Sates."
7. Rice's public statement that no one ever imagined terrorists using planes as weapons is contradicted by Louis Freeh's testimony that the use of planes as a potential weapon for a terrorist attack was known.
8. The administration gives in to public pressure and allows Bush and Cheney to meet with the commission privately. Bush becomes the target of late night talk show barbs for needing to have Cheney with him when he testifies.
9. Bush and Cheney, in the face of evidence to the contrary, continue to spin that intelligence warnings indicated al-Qaeda attacks would be overseas and not here in the U.S.
10. Bush accepts George Tenant's resignation.
11. Despite an Interim Report from the commission that states no evidence was found linking Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, Cheney continues to publicly link al-Qaeda and Iraq.
12. The commission rebukes Cheney's public comments that he probably had more facts than the commission on the al-Qaeda links to Iraq by offering Cheney an opportunity to provide them with that information Cheney provides no such information.
13. Early reports indicate that the commission will tie Iran to al-Qaeda. Iran had much to gain from the removal of Saddam and his secular government.
Bush has said he's going to "study" the report, instead of reading it. (I'd really like to see him read it aloud in public without an earpiece or prompts from Cheney, actually. Could he? I doubt it.) Since nobody in the Bush administration is ever wrong about anything, I doubt much will be accomplished until he is out of office. This is a guy who says that he's a war president, and now he wants to be a peace president, and we're winning the war on terrah. At the same time, they're announcing that elections might be postponed if we're attacked again. If we're so safe, why are they trying to frighten people with vague, meaningless alerts?
Kerry, on the other hand, has pledged to follow the commission's recommendations. The commission itself is a weird duck, though. The report is unanimous and bi-partisan, so I am not sure that is really the hard-hitting report we needed. It does follow a bit in the tradition of the Warren report on Kennedy, where nobody is terribly satisfied with the result, though.
Update 11:09 am
Fixed the spelling of Pterry's name. Also, it's now 87 outside.
