Today I polished off Al Franken's
The Truth with Jokes. Franken's writing somehow combines partisan mean-spiritedness with warm humour. If you enjoyed either of Franken's earlier political books (
Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot and
Lies and Lying Liars Who Tell Them) then you'll probably get a kick out of this one as well. The politically conservative probably will not enjoy this book as much as the lefties. (And at least
one site seems to make a case for Franken himself being full of crap.) Probably the most important thing I learned from
The Truth was that the Presidential Daily Briefing for 8/6/01 had been declassified and released to the public. That's the little document entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". You can check it out yourself
here. Here's the money shot, from the second page of this 2-page memo:
FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks
I don't know about you, but that doesn't look to me like an "historical memo", as Condoleeza Rice described it to the 9/11 Commission. Most of the memo spells out previous Bin Ladin activity but it also notes that he plans his attacks years in advance.
Today I polished off Al Franken's The Truth with Jokes. Franken's writing somehow combines partisan mean-spiritedness with warm humour. If you enjoyed either of Franken's earlier political books (Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot and Lies and Lying Liars Who Tell Them) then you'll probably get a kick out of this one as well. The politically conservative probably will not enjoy this book as much as the lefties. (And at least one site seems to make a case for Franken himself being full of crap.) Probably the most important thing I learned from The Truth was that the Presidential Daily Briefing for 8/6/01 had been declassified and released to the public. That's the little document entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". You can check it out yourself here. Here's the money shot, from the second page of this 2-page memo:
It's easy to look back now and say that Bush should have paid special attention to this one particular memo.
ReplyDeleteBut back before 9/11 there was no reason to single out this one briefing, since Bin Laden hadn't attacked yet. It was just one more potential threat amid hundreds of others.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Years of Clinton era observations and surveilance of Bin Laden, culminating in POTUS being told a surgical strike would be in the nation's best interest, that was just a co-incidence.
ReplyDeletehindsight is 20/20, foresight maybe 20/30.
It's ridiculous to suggest that Bush should have seen a report that Bin Laden and Al Quada planned to hijack plans and determine from that they planned to fly them into buildings.
ReplyDeleteWho here has made that suggestion, Darren?
ReplyDeleteMy point was that Ms. Rice was lying about the nature of the memo.