The Fact Sheet

It's interesting that after refusing for two years to release the PDB from August 2001 warning that Osama bin Laden was "determined to attack in the U.S.," the White House yesterday made the document public along with a "fact sheet" -- "a written rebuttal twice as long as the document itself." It's clear, as President Bush and Condi Rice insist, that the brieifing memo does not present a "specific threat" about flying aircraft into the World Trade Center. But it does provide a serious warning that Al Qaeda was already operating in the United States and in Summer 2001 was engaged in suspicious activities suggesting preparations for highjackings.

What I don't understand, frankly, is why the Administration so often takes radical, unsupportable positions from which it is forced to backslide so quickly. Just last Thursday Rice said the PDB was "historical" only. That's simply not true. Now the Republic members of the 9/11 Commission are forced to argue that the PDB was not a "smoking gun" for the Al Qaeda attacks. That's also correct, but it's a far cry different from the spin of just days ago.

This is the kind of disinformation that led to the infamous "credibility gap" which doomed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson in 1968. How could we have come from "mission accomplished" to the quagmire of Falujah in just one year? If you talk straight to the American people they will understand and support their government. If you dissemble, they will make you pay the consequences. The Bushies need to decide if they will trust their own citizenry with the truth.

 Posted by glenn