Bush being defensive:

We were surprised at the White House's reaction to the Senate Intelligence Committee report. That report appears at first glance to exonerate the administration. It's the CIA's fault, don't you know. (Let's ignore for now the fact that caveats and reservations were present in clsssified reports the White House was privy to.) So Bush is off the hook.

But that's not a good excuse. Why? Because the attacks of 9/11 demonstrated a massive intelligence failure and from that point on it was the executive branch's responsibility to insure the CIA produce better analysis. Better, more accurate analysis. Not skewed either way - (neither more alarmist nor more optimistic).

In the aftermath of 9/11, the administration claimed that they were new on the job and had "only" eight months to get up to speed. We thought that was hardly an excuse, but putting that aside, after 9/11 the Bush administration was responsible for insuring the intelligence was better - especially in the case of an elective war.

Has the public picked up on this? Does Bush know he's responsible for the post-9/11 CIA? Have the press and pundits come to that conclusion?

Something is happening, that's for sure.

ADDENDUM: We've always thought the expression "It happened on his watch" to be glib and skirt over complexities, but in the case of the bad-CIA-intel-about-Iraq it seems apt.

posted by Quiddity at 7/13/2004 04:46:00 AM