I neglected yesterday, while discussing Ron Suskind's new book, to cite perhaps the most noteworthy little tidbit. So here it is:
Remember the flap over the pre-9/11 document that President Bush was given on August 6, 2001? The PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) that was entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States"? We already know, from Condoleezza Rice's May 2004 testimony to the 9/11 Commission, that she didn't consider that PDB to be anything worth worrying about; as she said in her testimony, "It was not a particular threat report"; rather, it was merely "historical information."
Did her boss, who was in the midst of enjoying his summer sojourn in Texas, respond with any sense of urgency? Apparently not, according to Suskind's inside sources:
A CIA official briefed Bush on the PDB. Bush listened. Then Bush said, "All right. You've covered your ass now."
About Me
- Dick Polman
- Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. This online column is cited by The Washington Post as one of the top five mainstream political blogs in the country, and is touted by former "Hardball" TV producer Howard Mortman as "the immediately must-read political blog." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns. In his 22 years at the Inquirer, he has also been a foreign correspondent based in London; a baseball writer covering the Philadelphia Phillies; a general-assignment writer in the feature section; and a longtime Sunday magazine contributor. In the early '80s, he wrote three metro columns a week for the Hartford Courant. A graduate of George Washington University, today Dick is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence."