Tuesday's Word: Blogswarm

From Ripley's The Zen Cabin, we have ruthlessly stolen the following:

The blogswarm refers to the Aug 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing: "bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US", which Bush ignored. We're just trying to remind people that Bush had the intelligence before 9/11 and ignored it.
August 6, 2001

It’s a date that should cause the Republican Party’s cheeks to burn. A date that, perhaps even more than 9/11/01, should have caused George W. Bush to break down in tears of shame and resign from office. Yet, here we are, America…

So many words have been tossed about to describe George Bush in the last six years: incompetent, incurious, demented, unqualified, criminally insane… I think that nearly every unflattering description of human behavior and character would be appropriate.

But August 6, 2001… that’s the day when George W. Bush revealed his true character. Unfortunately, America wasn’t a witness to this revelation until years later, and by then… by then, it was too late.

“bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US”. What kind of fun must you be having to ignore something so pointed, so straightforward in both its meaning and its prose? I’ve done a lot – a LOT – of landscaping in my days and I can tell you, it’s not that much fun. If I had the choice between spending a month on conference calls with Intelligence and Security personnel or clearing brush, well… the brush will wait for me. bin Laden, it seems, had a more specific timeline in mind.

Conspiracy theories abound – MIHOP, LIHOP, what have you – but I’m not a conspiracy theorist. All I need to remember is that George W. Bush was too busy relaxing from that grueling first six months of work to give a damn about America or Americans. “You’ve covered your ass”, indeed…

Fast forward to “the post-9/11 World” that George Bush was too self-centered to notice barreling down the track. Our own government spies on its citizens and demands retroactive immunity for breaking the law and ignoring the Constitution. Suddenly, the Crawford Weedwhacker needs to keep track of every phone call, every web site visit because… well, we really don’t know, do we? Evidently, bin Laden is no longer Enemy #1 but America is populated by 300,000,000 persons of interest.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” has been replaced by a never-ending loop of “9/11! September the 11th!”. Yes, we remember September the 11th, Mr. Bush. Some of us remember the fact that you could have done something to prevent it, or at least tried. And now we see you scurrying to cover your tracks and protect your little henchmen – the only people who believe in you and, evidently, the only people you’ve ever been concerned about.

It seems you take the threat of honest Americans and Justice far more seriously than you’ve ever considered the threat of terrorism. Or maybe you just misunderstimated bin Laden’s determination.

August 6, 2001. Enjoy your Legacy, Mr. Bush.


The blogswarm refers to the Aug 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing: "bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US", which Bush ignored. We're just trying to remind people that Bush had the intelligence before 9/11 and ignored it.