Bush’s Excuse for Failing to Stop 9/11: “But Nobody Told Me, Honest!”

The New York Times reports today in Bush Says Brief on Al Qaeda Threat Was Not Specific that Bush repeated for what seems like the 100th time his ridiculous apologia for his failure to detect the Al Qaeda 9/11 attack:

“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,” Mr. Bush said after attending Easter services in Fort Hood, Tex. “Of course we knew that America was hated by Osama bin Laden. That was obvious. The question was, who was going to attack us, when and where, and with what.”

I hope I’m not the only one to label this for what it is: a pathetic, self-serving and useless excuse. Here’s the type of Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) on August 6, 2001, which would’ve caused George to ‘move heaven and earth’ (to use George’s hackneyed phrase):

Condi Rice: Mr. President, I have here your daily briefing materials. I refer you to the title of today briefing: “Osama’s Coming on 9/11.” Looks like Al Qaeda plans to hijack four planes taking off in New York City and Boston and plans to fly them into the two World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and the White House. We understand these attacks will take place on September 11, 2001. Whadya think we should do?”

Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if every terrorist warning could be that specific. But how many are? So George means to tell us that a PDB entitled Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States isn’t specific enough for him to take urgent action to protect our shores? Give me a break! And this guy wants us, the American people to give him another four years? He screwed up on 9/11, he’s screwed up Iraq, if he’d devoted any serious effort to it he would’ve screwed up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he’s screwed up the economy–imagine what more he can screw up with another four years!