Condi Rice, how to Lie and Yet Not Lie From her testimony on April 8, 2004: "This particular PDB had a long section on what bin Laden had wanted to do -- speculative, much of it -- in '97, '98, that he had in fact liked the results of the 1993 bombing." ...Condi conveniently forgot something.... From today's NY Times WASHINGTON, April 9 — President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday. The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford. The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders. ... And speaking of lying. The White House seems to forget their over-the-top efforts at discrediting Richard Clarke when they keep pulling him out to provide what evidence they DO have that they took action on the Al Qaeda threat. How does this help them...the ONLY person taking action was Richard Clarke? If one wingnut would disconnect from the Borg Collective long enough to contemplate that possibility we'd be reenacting a scene from Scanners. Here's another little snippet from that article: The memo from Mr. Clarke's group in July 2001 about F.B.I. activities adds another piece of evidence to the document trail, but it is unlikely to resolve the questions over whether the administration did enough to deter an attack. White House officials, who spent several weeks attacking Mr. Clarke's credibility, said Friday that they believed the memo from his counterterrorism group was an accurate reflection of steps the White House took to deter an attack. But they questioned whether the F.B.I. executed the instructions to intensify its scrutiny of terrorist suspects and contacts in the United States. ... And now on to somebody who just plain bald-face lies. The Vice-President of the United States, Dick "Dick" Cheney. Some may remember it was reported (because why listen to that drivel) that Cheney stated in an interview with Rush "Big Pharma" Limbaugh that Richard Clarke was not credible in his book because he "wasn't in the loop". Well, guess what? Shockingly "the Dick" lied to all of that feeble greek chorus. Since we know Big Pharma won't correct the record, let the New Republic do so. "here's what Cheney said back in May of 2002 in response to a question from Tim Russert about what actions were taken after Bush received the now-famous August 6 President's Daily Brief, headlined "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.": In terms of this question of notification to agencies, there is within the NSC a mechanism that's been there through various administrations, the Counterterrorism Group Interagency Task Force. It's headed by--it was at that time by Dick Clarke who'd headed it as well back during the Clinton administration, somebody I'd known a long time. And that's a process. That's where the action takes place when these reports come in and you believe you've got actual intelligence. Out of that group will emerge a directive, for example, encourage the FAA to send out a circular, encourage the Justice Department to undertake certain kinds of warnings. A lot of that now is coordinated with the Office of Homeland Security with Governor Ridge, but there were warnings that went out as part of the regular processes of the government in connection with the possibility of an attack here at home and it went out over a period of months. In other words, back when reporters first questioned the White House about what was done in response to the pre-9/11 threat spike, the only actions the vice president could point to were those taken by Clarke. LIE, LIE, LIE ....oh and... LIE A good paragraph posted at the Daily Kos sums it up quite well: All this President's men and women believe their job is to protect this President. It's not. Their jobs are to protect and advance the interests of the American people. They have failed. Anyone looking at what's happening in Iraq the last few weeks can see that they continue to fail, and fail spectacularly.