This is what Bush said today about 9/11:
"Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people."
This is what he said on Tuesday, as noted by TPM: "Had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on Sept. 11, we would have acted."
I'm pretty sure I've heard Rice and Rumsfeld and McClellan say almost identical things (any additional citations welcome). They stick to this incredibly strict verbal formula about not knowing either that airplanes could be used as missiles or that New York would be attacked, or something similiar. They don't say: "If we had known that there was a serious threat of attack, we would have acted." They always qualify their absence of knowledge with some very specific detail.
So the question is, what does the absurd specificity of the White House language on this mean? We know they're all serial obfuscators and liars, but we've also all become very schooled in spotting the kinds of rhetorical evasions, legalisms, unvarying talking points, and non-denial denials which are these guys' stock in trade. So what, exactly, is the issue here? What dangerous truth is this linguistic sleight-of-hand intended to obscure? Can we deduce, based on what folks like Clarke are saying, and based on what the White House is pointedly not saying, precisely what it is they are hiding or afraid to admit publicly? And isn't it about time somebody in the press asked BushCo why they insist on using this particular rhetorical formula?