Imminence Defined

Imminence is everything in American politics. President Bush dismissed the August 2001 PDB from his ranch in Crawford, Texas today because "[t]here was nothing there that said, you know, 'There's an imminent attack.'" [CNN.com]. Likewise, six weeks ago CIA director George Tenet defended his agency against charges that its intelligence on Iraqi WMDs was faulty by saying that the CIA never concluded the threat from Saddam Hussein was "imminent."

Of course, most people assume that imminent, as used in these quotes, means "immediate." But the dictionary says that the word has a secondary meaning, namely "full of danger; threatening; menacing; perilous." Both Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein surely meet that definition. So any way one cuts it, the sad fact is that politicians are playing word games with the security of America.

Nothing new there, unfortunately.

 Posted by glenn