So now we have the
PDB which, by almost any standard for what constitutes perjury under oath, fails to validate National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's claim that "There was no new threat information and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States." Mostly historical, sure, but "no new threat information" and "did not, in fact, warn"?
Still, giving Dr. Rice a broad benefit of doubt, the following statements not only refer to contemporary or future events, but are literally written in active or future tense language (my bolds added):
Al-Qa'ida members - including some who are US citizens - have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparation for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations through the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives."
Meanwhile, the very next day, while golfing near the Crawford, TX, ranch, a television interview of the President from his golf cart had him talking about - you guessed it - Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. The Washington Post chronicles Bush's movements and speeches during the remainder of his August vacation, including a speech insisting on the need for missile defense.
In the same article, a former Bush aide says Rice's insistence that we were at "battle stations" was an overstatement in the contemporary context, but adds that it "wasn't just the president who was on vacation. It was the whole government."
Fair enough.
But with her admission of high-level chatter as early as the "spring and summer" of 2001, as she testified on Thursday, the real question is why neither Rice, Bush nor anyone else was motivating themselves or the bureaucracy to end their vacations, literal or metaphorical.
Bottom line: Active language in the memo, passive posture for the Bush Administration.
All of that's about to change, however. As Lisa Myers reported on Meet the Press -- and I concur with DemfromCT, below, that MTP today is must-see-TV -- Republicans have privately been complaining to the White House that the president's current passivity and invisibility must stop. And so, at any moment, Bush will be speaking live in Fort Hood, Texas, following a visit to families of nine soldiers from there who were killed in Iraq, according to Fox News.
With the president's poll numbers plummeting, it's time for action.