WOW! George Wills takes on Richard Perle on Bush 911 Incompetence

[ulTRAX]

I'm just watching yesterday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Richard Perle was defending Bush inaction with some red herring that what was Bush supposed to do? Shut down all air space... gone into a panic mode? There was not enough specifity to take any action.

To my surprise George Wills confronts him.... sounding a lot like a Richard Clarke defender. Here's a loose trascript:

George Wills: Richard, that's classic bureaucratic mode. What are you going to do? Close down the Washington Monument? No. Here's what the President might have done. He could have said 70 FBI field operations looking at this? Let's see what they're all looking at. Might have, by going back at that point, have said what's this out in Phoenix where the man said we have a suspicious pattern of foreigners in flight training.

George Stephanopoulos: They say it wasn't brought up to him. It wasn't brought up to that level.

George Wills: That's right. But that's how you force the action. You could have said my hair is on fire, to use the jargon of the day, what are they learning now?

[fsbooks]

1. Is someone finally getting through?

perhaps. perhaps....

[Wickerman]

5. And when are they going to start asking

why doesn't this pResident have the intellectual curiosity to look a little deeper into these things? Why is Bush* always on the defensive. Today on the radio I heard him doing a bad Cagne while saying, like a little boy, see?, there is noting in that PDB that said I needed to do anything,so leave me alone.

When are Americans going to demand more than a pouting grade schooler to lead their country?

[ulTRAX]

8. hung up on Saddam and stem cells

I, nor anyone, can really know whether a full scale investigation... where no stone was left unturned... could have stopped the 911 plot.
Yet we all have to wonder Bush blew the best shot we had because he was hung up on Saddam and stem cell research.

I DO believe that if there had been leadership from the Bush Junta... investigators given more direction could have followed the leads. Perhaps they would have led to but one of the hijackers. Yet that disruption might have been enough to call the 911 plot off. We can never know. But what we SHOULD be doing is holding Bush responsible. Because of the War he's been given a "get out of jail free" card on this issue.

[ochazuke]

2. I think we've found the litmus test for integrity of conservatives

They're turning on Bush in order of most-upstanding to totally craven.

George Will is somewhere in the middle, roughly. So, I guess we're about halfway toward the most-loyal and depraved bush-lovers.

[yardwork]

3. George Will intensely dislikes the Bushes

and the feeling is mutual. It goes way back.

The significance is that Will and others are starting to speak up and be heard.

[SoDesuKa]

6. And Both Sides are Right

George Bush (either one) and George Will - two scumbags.

[moondust]

7. They're screwing up conservatism!

He knows they're incompetent.

I've heard him say that he thinks it will take generations to repair the damage done to U.S. credibility over Iraq, that you simply cannot invade another country based on lies and misinformation. Sounding like a liberal!

[Prodemsouth]

4. Listen to that wuss, George, the other George the bad George, the whore

George. Oh, I am talking about Will.

[grasswire]

9. Will does NOT "intensely dislike" the Bushes.

George and Laura dine at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Will. They see each other socially.