Is There Room On The Bandwagon?

Condi for VP - I'm all for it, if "VP" means "Very Perplexing". What is this all about:

The CIA now says that a controversial August 2001 briefing summarizing potential attacks on the United States by al Qaeda was not requested by President Bush, as Rice and others had long claimed. The Aug. 6, 2001, document, known as the President's Daily Brief, has been the focus of intense scrutiny because it reported that Osama bin Laden advocated airplane hijackings, that al Qaeda supporters were in the United States and that the group was planning attacks here.

After the highly classified document's existence was first revealed in news reports in May 2002 , Rice held a news conference in which she suggested that Bush had requested the briefing because of his keen concern about elevated terrorist threat levels that summer. But Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic commission member, disclosed at the hearing yesterday that the CIA informed the panel last week that the author of the briefing does not recall such a request from Bush and that the idea to compile the briefing came from within the CIA.

But a White House official who demanded anonymity replied: "We did request such a document. It's not out of the question that the CIA and others had the same idea."

No, it's not. But when Jack Ryan worked for the White House, "The President wants this" were the magic words. If the President asked for it, who did he ask, and does anyone on the CIA side recall the request?

Or are we being offered the "coy psychic" theory: the President mentioned it to Condi; later that day George Tenet said, "Guess what we have as a bonus for you - a domestic threat assessment"; stunned by the coincidence, Condi (or Andrew Card, or whoever), doesn't even think to blurt out, "Thanks, the President had just asked for that". Pretty strong stuff.

UPDATE: Let's hear from Condi herself. And if anyone wants to find the May 2002 press conference, please consider this a "Help Wanted" sign.

MORE: The truth outs, at Condi Rice's April 8 hearing:

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE I want to ask you some questions about the Aug. 6, 2001, P.D.B. [President's Daily Briefing]. We had been advised in writing by the C.I.A. on March 19, 2004, that the Aug. 6 P.D.B. was prepared and self-generated by a C.I.A. employee. Following Director Tenet's testimony on March 26 before us, the C.I.A. clarified its version of events saying that questions by the president prompted them to prepare the Aug. 6 P.D.B. You have said to us in our meeting together earlier, in February, that the president directed the C.I.A. to prepare the Aug. 6 P.D.B.

...[CONDI RICE]: First of all, yes, the Aug. 6 P.D.B. was in response to questions of the president. In that sense, he asked that this be done.

Comments

[IceCold]

It struck me, reading the same article, that while managing to avoid almost any factual or substantive discussion related to Clarke's testimony, this utterly immaterial and abstruse little item got a few paragraphs. Astounding.

[fishkite]

CNN has a better article on Rice's meeting with reporters. Turns out Clarke wrote an email to Rice after the attacks detailing the White House's pre-911 actions:

"Summarizing his thoughts to Rice, Clarke wrote, 'Thus, the White House did insure that domestic law enforcement (including FAA) knew that the [counterterrorism security group] believed that a major al Qaeda attack was coming and it could be in the U.S. ... and did ask that special measures be taken.'"

It also includes one reason why Clarke can be considered as having been "out of the loop":

"A senior official also said Rice twice complained directly to Clarke about his rare appearances at her senior staff meetings. In one e-mail, Clarke responded he was "too busy" and that after he missed another meeting Rice responded that he would have a "problem" if he did not start attending."

When you add that to the fact that Clarke's job was more or less duplicated by the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the Pentagon, it's not hard to believe Cheney's characterization.

It was Clarke's job to keep Rice in the loop, not the other way around. As Clarke himself admits, he failed.