I had an idea for a post that I was going to write this week but then I saw that Tom Tomorrow has already captured the point in a cartoon today. (It’s on Salon, so you may have to wait through an ad to see it.)
In four small frames, Tomorrow has explained the inherent silliness — and contradictory nature — of the White House’s rhetoric dealing with foreign intelligence information.
When dealing with the terrorist threats of 9/11, Bush and the White House received all kinds of warnings about al Queda, potential hijackings, and potential domestic targets. The threats weren’t specific — they didn’t include flight numbers, for example — and they didn’t tell the White House specifically what to do about the pending threat, but they were obviously very serious in nature.
Bush’s line has been that he “never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America.” So, in turn, Bush chose passivity and inaction and took August 2001 off.
As Tom Tomorrow put it, Bush essentially said, “Well, without specific, credible, well-sourced intelligence, there’s absolutely nothing I can do! Zip! Zilch! Nada!”
Contrast that with Bush’s approach to pre-war intelligence in Iraq.
Barely-existent and ultimately-wrong information about a potential threat in Iraq prompted immediate action on Bush’s part when it pointed to an enemy Bush wanted to attack anyway.
So Bush’s defense — intelligence drove policy — is apparently no longer “operative.” I can’t wait to hear the new line. I bet it’s a doozy.