{"id":2410,"date":"2004-04-12T05:31:29","date_gmt":"2004-04-12T19:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/04\/12\/bush-the-pdb-was-no-indication-of-a-terrorist-threat\/"},"modified":"2019-12-10T08:41:42","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T16:41:42","slug":"bush-the-pdb-was-no-indication-of-a-terrorist-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/04\/12\/bush-the-pdb-was-no-indication-of-a-terrorist-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush: &#8216;&#8230;the PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat.&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:11291,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.whitehouse.gov\\\/news\\\/releases\\\/2004\\\/04\\\/20040411.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20090117222510\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.whitehouse.gov\\\/news\\\/releases\\\/2004\\\/04\\\/20040411.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 15:05:40&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 15:05:40&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11292,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.davidsirota.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260206025630\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.davidsirota.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 15:05:43&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 15:05:43&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11293,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2004_04_11_atrios_archive.html#108173894521590221&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20070707204114\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2004_04_11_atrios_archive.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.eschatonblog.com\\\/2004_04_11_atrios_archive.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><strong><em>What?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I challenge <em>anyone<\/em> to explain to me how this isn&#8217;t just flat-out <em>idiotic<\/em>. From a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/news\/releases\/2004\/04\/20040411.html\" title=\"Remarks by the President to the Travel Pool\">press conference with President Bush yesterday<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Q Mr.\u00a0President, could you tell us, did you see the presidential &#8212; the President&#8217;s Daily Brief from August of &#8217;01 as a warning &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>  THE PRESIDENT: Did I see it? Of course I saw it; I asked for it.<\/p>\n<p>  Q No, no, I&#8217;m sorry &#8212; did you see it as a warning of hijackers? And how did you respond to that?<\/p>\n<p>  THE PRESIDENT: My response was exactly like then as it is today, that I asked for the Central Intelligence Agency to give me an update on any terrorist threats. <strong>And the PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat.<\/strong> There was not a time and place of an attack. It said Osama bin Laden had designs on America. Well, I knew that. What I wanted to know was, is there anything specifically going to take place in America that we needed to react to?<\/p>\n<p>  As you might recall, there was some specific threats for overseas that we reacted to. And as the President, I wanted to know whether there was anything, any actionable intelligence. And I looked at the August 6th briefing, I was satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into. <strong>But that PDB said nothing about an attack on America.<\/strong> It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America &#8212; well, we knew that.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This would be the PDB entitled &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/04\/presidents_dail.html#more\" title=\"President's Daily Briefing, August 6 2001\">Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US<\/a>&#8220;, by the way.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll have to excuse me for a moment, but&#8230;could we <em>please<\/em> get this fucking <em>imbecile<\/em> out of the Oval Office?<\/p>\n<p>I cannot believe the hubris, the monomaniacal egotism of Bush and his cronies. Because there wasn&#8217;t a time and dated marked on a calendar and circled in bright red ink, they think they&#8217;re absolved of any responsibility in preventing the attack.<\/p>\n<p>This makes me sick.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.davidsirota.com\/\" title=\"Sirotablog\">David Sirota is fact-checking Bush<\/a> also:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Not only is Bush lying, but he&#8217;s making a ridiculous argument: he&#8217;s essentially saying that because he did not know terrorists would attack at a specific time, place he is absolved from his gross negligence in failing to ratchet up homeland security and counterterrorism before 9\/11. It is like saying that while you know a car accident can kill you and your family, it is OK to not strap yourself and your kids in because you don&#8217;t know exactly when and where you might get into an accident.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/atrios.blogspot.com\/2004_04_11_atrios_archive.html#108173894521590221\" title=\"Bush Lies\">Atrios<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What? I challenge anyone to explain to me how this isn&#8217;t just flat-out idiotic. From a press conference with President Bush yesterday:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-2410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}