Spinning the August 6 memo

[welshTerrier2]

here come the spinmeisters ...

Woolsey was just on MSNBC spinning the same nonsense condi tried to lay down yesterday ...

here's the basic pitch:

the memo was vague ... it didn't say how, when or where ... we had lots of these memos ... some said al qaeda would attack in the U.S., some said overseas ...

of course, the point is that after receiving a presidential briefing that bin laden was planning an attack inside the U.S., bush did absolutely nothing ... the fact that the memo didn't provide specifics and that many other memos were received is a pathetic excuse for inaction ...

if many other memos were received, all intelligence agencies should have been directed (we call this leadership) to heavily focus on this issue ...

the fact that the memo didn't provide specifics makes the case even stronger that bush should have directed (we call this leadership) the intelligence agencies to get the details ...

instead, bush remained on vacation ... he did not return to washington ... he did not call in the FBI director ... he did not demand that details of bin Laden's plan be researched ... he did not ask for an analysis of how credible the threat was compared to information contained in other memos ... he just did not do anything ...

[Shoedogg]

1. "it didn't say how, when or where"

Yesterday on Air America, I thought a perfect rebuttal for this point was given:

(paraphrasing)

"That's like calling the police to report that there's going to be a rash of burglaries in a neighborhood - the police do nothing to beef up patrols and then say, "Well, no one told us what night, whether they'd jimmy the door or break the windows, or which houses they planned to burglarize."

[LittleApple81]

4. This is the correct answer to this. I heard it yesterday. n/t

[truth2power]

8. Excellent! n/t

[ewagner]

2. Woolsey and the gang

already know what's in the memo and it was certainly the administration plan to release as soon as Condi testified.

In my opinion, this was the strategy once it was inevitable that Condi had to testify under oath. I'm sure we will hear these same talking points parroted on Hannity, Rush and FAUX for the next several days....it's all been planned since they decided to let Condi testify. This is only phase II.

[BOSSHOG]

3. And, if the document is as honest conservatives describe it

there should be no problem with declassifying it. Why would one classify such a worthless document? I thought I was pretty smart but I didn't know that "historical" documents would describe what willl happen in the future.

[rwork]

5. I had to laugh out loud

when I heard 2 NPR ladies discussing the Condi testimony. They said the Whitehouse would rush out the Aug 6th memo to prove they have nothing to hide. When have they ever rushed out a memo?

[mzmolly]

6. Unfriggin real how these a**holes try to cover there arses.

Lets see. Clinton is to blame for the attacks though he was NOT in office when this August memo was sent to C Rice.

They decided, "there's not enough information?"

UHM ISN'T IT TIME TO FIND OUT MORE WHEN YOU GET A MEMO OF THIS NATURE!!!! You don't say "OH WELL, THEY DIDN'T TELL US THE TIME/DATE/PLACE, so I'm just not gonna bother!!!!!! :mad:

[charlie105]

7. Osama, next time please call before you drop in, will you? You can't

just surprise us like the last time. We have only a few thousand intelligence agents and a budget of a few tens of billions of dollars. You can't expect us to be ready to receive you when we are busy crafting an Iraq and Soviet strategy. And an energy and deficit-increase policy. Make sure that yo drop in during the 3 days of the year that our 'War President' is not on vacation. And we'll make sure that our well-read compassionate leader is reading a war story rather than a story on goats.

You see, we do everything in our powers to ensure that you don't surprise us. But when you do, it's not really our fault. We are not accountable for your actions, now are we? As our great moral adviser Karen Hughes has proclaimed, it would be misplaced responsibility to seek forgiveness when YOU come crashing in. It's not really our fault that we were not guarding the door. You never gave us the date and time of your arrival.
So next time, please call, okay.

:hi:

[welshTerrier2]

9. "Not actionable"

now they're saying that, because the FBI memo did not request that any action be taken, no action was necessary in response to the memo ...

are they kidding ???

the FBI tells bush that the leader of an international terrorist organization with a long history of attacks on U.S. targets is planning hijackings inside the U.S. and bush tries to get off the hook by saying that the memo did not "request" specific action ... well, he's right !! the memo didn't "request" anything ... it "demanded" that specific action be taken ...

this is a total failure of leadership ... the memo didn't require bush to "know" that planes would be flown into buildings ... but it certainly required that he get up off his Crawford vacationing ass and do something ... "not actionable" indeed !!!!!!

[PATRICK]

10. The whole shebang

Memos are weak tea and probably the argument that even one saying the WH was on fire could be overlooked defensibly. Again we are fighting Bush's stubborn walls around ALL information at the farthest perimeter of defense. Detailed position papers and meetings of top officials are off limits or meandering grudgingly to SCOTUS. O'Neill's details of scripted cabinet meetings show even those showpieces are not where the "good stuff" was likely talked about.

It would be all over in an hour, I have no doubt whatsoever, should key evidence be presented from meetings of Cheney's inner circle, Bush clan tete a tetes, closeted one on ones between those two groups and assorted other instruments. Is mention ever made of the Bush family receiving personal intelligence from their Saudi buddies outside the CIA and government channels and not shared with them? Was there any fly on the wall when the Bush boys sat down to rig voting in 2000? Does Cheney meet with his boys regularly to plan how they can HELP Powell find peaceful resolutions- or something else?

Like any frustrating siege a lot of bodies and whistleblowers are piling up at the outer walls while the defenders laughingly pour fire into the masses below. The first breach merely leads to inner defenses and more losses.

Or it could crumble mercifully sooner. Like any siege, the raw passions of the suffering attackers if unleashed would show absolutely no mercy. Yet I suppose any recapturing of democracy would be restrained and blind to the perps escorted to safety and free to plot again.

The high ground was seized from America by a continuing policy of squat, squander and squash. No single scandal beyond the clearest malfeasance of the inner circle is going to stop it, but a cumulative chipping away and rollback.