OK, one more thing for the week. You’ll no doubt be hearing plenty over the weekend about the new Senate Intelligence Committee report that shifts blame away from the White House and onto the CIA for the multiple failures regarding Iraq. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was on the Today Show this morning and, with a little help from Matt Lauer, reminded viewers of what they won’t be seeing anytime soon.
Matt Lauer: And Senator Levin, I’ll give you just 10 seconds for this. There is another report coming out that focuses on the administration. But it won’t come out until after the election. Is that fair to the American people?
Sen. Carl Levin: Not really, but they know that. They know that the Republican leadership here made a decision that the misuse or the exaggerations which clearly occurred by the administration of the intelligence they got is not going to be looked at until after the election. The Republican leadership just made that decision.
Matt Lauer: All right.
Sen. Carl Levin: They weren’t going to look at that until later.
Matt Lauer: Olivia Snowe…
Sen. Olympia Snowe: Well the — Chairman Roberts has indicated that, in fact, that they will do a by — try to do it by the election and complete that second phase of the report.
Sen. Carl Levin: Yeah. Don’t hold your breath on that.
Levin’s right, of course. If Snowe believes that Pat Roberts is going to get the real information out before the election, then she’s probably inclined to believe Bush’s National Guard records really did burn up in a freak microfilm accident.