THE END OF A WARM BARREL.

I think it's clear by now that there will be no smoking gun for the Bush Administration, unless Bush himself is caught having shot someone. Somewhere between 40 and 45% of the country simply doesn't care and won't care before November. But today's Washington Post basically nails down the claim that the White House was interested in terrorism before the attacks, and their post hoc claims now are flat-out lies.

The speech was postponed in the chaos of the day, part of which Rice spent in a bunker. It mentioned terrorism, but did so in the context used in other Bush administration speeches in early 2001: as one of the dangers from rogue nations, such as Iraq, that might use weapons of terror, rather than from the cells of extremists now considered the main security threat to the United States.

The text also implicitly challenged the Clinton administration's policy, saying it did not do enough about the real threat -- long-range missiles.

"We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. "[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"

The text of Rice's Sept. 11 speech, which was never delivered, broadly reflects Bush administration foreign policy pronouncements during the eight months leading to the attacks, according to a review of speeches, news conferences and media appearances. Although the administration did address terrorism, it devoted far more attention to pushing missile defense, a controversial idea both at home and abroad, the review shows.

...

"The president's commitment to fighting terrorism isn't measured by the number of speeches, but by the concrete actions taken to fight the threat," said James R. Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser for communications, when asked about the speech. "The first major foreign policy directive of this administration was the new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda that the White House ordered soon after taking office. It was eliminating al Qaeda, not missile defense, not Iraq, and not the [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty," he said.

The administration requested such a directive in May 2001, but it did not take shape until a week before Sept. 11, according to a staff report of the commission investigating attacks. Bush signed the final directive in October, weeks after the attack.

A review of major public pronouncements in the first eight months of 2001 found relatively few extensive statements by Bush, Vice President Cheney or Rice about al Qaeda, bin Laden or other Islamic extremist groups.

The president set the tone. In his first address to Congress, on Feb. 27, 2001, Bush acknowledged the danger of bomb-wielding terrorists, but also promoted missile defense as the priority in protecting the United States.

The thing is, as basically everyone has said, they could get a pass on this. They turned out to be wrong, but I don't think the argument can really be made that, pre-attacks, their policy was irresponsible. But as long as this part of the story goes on, the part where they continued to focus on ICBM's, WMD's and "rogue states" after the attacks will go on. That's the real crime, and I can't figure out why political genius Karl Rove doesn't see where this is headed.

Or maybe he can? Campaign Desk has an interesting analysis of recent polling data:

On Saturday, a Newsweek poll showed President Bush's approval rating for his handling of terrorism and homeland security had dropped from 70 to 57 percent in the past two months. The poll also said, however, that the president's overall approval rating had held steady.

...

But it's the second thought that's the big one, and it's not addressed by either Newsweek or the AP: Could it be, as this poll indicated, that voters' growing discontent with Bush's performance at fighting terrorism -- supposedly the central issue in his campaign -- is of relatively minor importance? After all, second poll released by CNN/USA Today/Gallup late Tuesday, actually showed the president widening his lead over presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry.

That flies in the face of all conventional wisdom in both campaign camps and in the press itself -- and that's a story.

As I see it, there are two major potential explanations here. One is that Campaign Desk is right. We don't really care about terrorism in political terms. I'm not entirely sure I buy that as is, but I think I could be convinced that people believe Bush and Kerry would have roughly equal levels of success over the next four years. The campaigns have also not explicitly politicized their plans for the next four years of dealing with terror, so it may simply not be that charged up for people. Since we're two and a half years out from the attacks, I don't have a problem believing that people no longer process terrorism in domestic or non-military terms.

Option two is that the White House power structure is filled with pathological liars. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive, of course, and the recent travails of David Letterman indicate that this is the case.

Last night we showed a clip of the President giving a speech. Behind him stood a lad who was obviously bored silly. The 14-year-old or so yawned, scratched, yawned, yawned, checked his watch, bent over, stared at the ceiling, and then fell asleep during the President's speech. It was very funny. So funny, in fact, that CNN replayed the clip Tuesday during their broadcasts. But, but, but, the first time is was shown, CNN anchorwoman Daryn Kagan reported that the White House said the clip was a total fake, it was merely the Late Show having fun with their ability to edit and do TV tricks. Dave says what the CNN reporter said was an out and out 100% lie. A couple hours later, CNN anchor person Kyra Phillips reported that the kid was at the speech but not where the Late Show had him. Dave again makes the claim, "That's an out and out absolute 100% lie. That kid was exactly where we said he was." It's true. The speech was at a Florida Rally on March 20th at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Dave is irked that the White House was trying to make him look like a jerk. But he's glad he got his side of the story out in the open.

Later, the White House claimed it never called CNN and the network said the anchors "misspoke." Now Letterman says he has a source that tells him the White House did make the calls. What the fuck?

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2004:04:01:07:45