In "Which word didn't he understand ?" below I used the AP quote of Bush's statement. Mark Kleiman gives a more heroic effort to translate the statement into grammatic English.

"I am satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America ? at a time and a place, an attack,"

So, far from being unable to tell that US means U.S. not us, Bush is a major cutting edge metaphysician who has conceived of a possibility unimaginable to me, that an event -- a terrorist strike -- can take place, but not at a time and a place. I thought that all events that occur, must occur at a time and a place.

I shudder to think that I might have prevented the President from responding to the threat spike in Summer 2001, since I too would have neglected to mention that the menacing al Qaeda strike in America was the sort of strike that would take place at a time and a place and not in in the realm of abstract ideas, which I had always imagined was alien to Bush.

Of course what is really going on,a nd not for the first time, is that Bush is trying to say something misleading but technically true and messing up the technicalities. He meant to suggest that for the August 6th 01 PDB to be a useful warning of an attack it would have to describe the time and place of the attack . He slipped and stated the conclusion he was attempting to suggest.

It is a family problem and the son of the man who said "message -- I care" should be more careful.

If he really can't manage the misleading but technically true, maybe he should just speak frankly.

Naaaaaah