Passive-agressive
Josh Marshall has a good post on what's been so surprising about the "defense" the administration has been using for their actions in the eight months leading up to 9-11-01. Essentially, this "era of personal responsibility" President and his team are saying that they "assumed" lower levels were doing their jobs and that no one told them what to do.
The Preznit's motto, as Al Franken said yesterday on Air America, seems to be "The buck never made it to my desk."
Sounds like Ashcroft is going to maintain that approach this afternoon.
"They said the reports would also quote from internal memorandums by Thomas J. Pickard, acting director of the F.B.I. in summer 2001, in which Mr. Pickard described his frustration with Mr. Ashcroft and what he saw as the attorney general's lack of interest in the issue of how the bureau was investigating terrorism suspects in the United States.
"Commission officials said the Justice Department, which was provided with a draft copy of the report, had mounted an aggressive, last-minute effort on Monday to persuade the commission to rewrite the parts of the report dealing with Mr. Ashcroft, describing them as one-sided and unfair to him.
"Aides to Mr. Ashcroft, who is scheduled to testify before the commission on Tuesday, said he would tell the panel that he was briefed throughout the year on terrorist threats and was never informed ? by either the F.B.I. or C.I.A. ? that he needed to take special action, since intelligence reports suggested that any attack would be overseas.
"'He asked over and over again if there was any evidence of a domestic threat, and he was told over and over again that there was no evidence of one,' said Mark Corallo, Mr. Ashcroft's spokesman.
"Mr. Corallo said that Mr. Ashcroft had not seen the top-secret intelligence briefing report that was presented to President Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, and that referred to an active presence of Al Qaeda in the United States. But Mr. Corallo said the memo would not have made a difference, since it listed 'no specific threats' that needed to be addressed."
The Preznit's motto, as Al Franken said yesterday on Air America, seems to be "The buck never made it to my desk."
Sounds like Ashcroft is going to maintain that approach this afternoon.
"They said the reports would also quote from internal memorandums by Thomas J. Pickard, acting director of the F.B.I. in summer 2001, in which Mr. Pickard described his frustration with Mr. Ashcroft and what he saw as the attorney general's lack of interest in the issue of how the bureau was investigating terrorism suspects in the United States.
"Commission officials said the Justice Department, which was provided with a draft copy of the report, had mounted an aggressive, last-minute effort on Monday to persuade the commission to rewrite the parts of the report dealing with Mr. Ashcroft, describing them as one-sided and unfair to him.
"Aides to Mr. Ashcroft, who is scheduled to testify before the commission on Tuesday, said he would tell the panel that he was briefed throughout the year on terrorist threats and was never informed ? by either the F.B.I. or C.I.A. ? that he needed to take special action, since intelligence reports suggested that any attack would be overseas.
"'He asked over and over again if there was any evidence of a domestic threat, and he was told over and over again that there was no evidence of one,' said Mark Corallo, Mr. Ashcroft's spokesman.
"Mr. Corallo said that Mr. Ashcroft had not seen the top-secret intelligence briefing report that was presented to President Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, and that referred to an active presence of Al Qaeda in the United States. But Mr. Corallo said the memo would not have made a difference, since it listed 'no specific threats' that needed to be addressed."
posted by John at 1:31 PM
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