I didn't know you were still allowed to write on page A1 of the NYT that the White House is lying. I stress this, since my one blogging hit was a criticism of a sentence written by Andrea Elliot and Douglas Jehl
Now that the unanimous bipartisan 9-11 committee has finished arguing over what to write in their report, they are arguing over what they wrote in their report. That is, since the report is both monstrously long and a compromise, spin is all. Sanger and Jehl make their view very very clear. shorter Sanger and Jehl
The White House says the CIA sold Bush a bill of goods.
"But" ...
"Mr Lehman concluded. 'He was just like all new presidents'
But"
I didn't know the NYT style sheet allowed reporters to start a sentence with But, which, given the usual standards, can, I think be interpreted as being an abreviation for "but they are clearly lying" or "but he can't possibly really believe that".
Some actual news is in the article including hints of the bitter partisan debate inside the bipartisan unanimous commission
Aug. 6 briefing of Mr. Bush.
Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice have described that briefing, which has now been made public, as "historical" in nature. But the commission report obliquely challenged that view, noting that "two C.I.A. analysts involved in preparing this briefing article believed that it represented an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a bin Laden attack in the United States remained both current and serious."
Those analysts were reinterviewed by some commission members just last week, as the final touches were being put on the report, in a last-minute effort to reassess the administration's performance.
So it seems that the unanimous bipartisan commission fought on that one down to the last minute, even thought the title of the briefing should have cleared up the issue.
Also I get the first hints of what Bush said (presumably with Cheney kicking his shins as hard as he could).
Mr. Bush told the commission, the report said, that "if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it." Three pages later the report notes that Richard A. Clarke, the former N.S.C. counterterrorism chief who is now regarded as a pariah at the White House, told Ms. Rice "at least twice that Al Qaeda sleeper cells were likely in the United States. In January 2001, Clarke forwarded a strategy paper to Rice warning that Al Qaeda had a presence in the United States."
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