Krauthammer: 9/11 "Came Out Of the Blue"

For the past 150 years, most American war presidents -- most notably Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt -- have entered (or reentered) office knowing war was looming. Not so George W. Bush. Not so the war on terror. The 9/11 attacks literally came out of the blue.

Literally, but not figuratively, Chuckles.

Bush got that "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S." PDB five weeks before 9/11, and told the briefer that he'd covered his ass, now he could run along. This was just weeks after Bush had attended a European summit at which there had been heightened concern about the possibility of a terrorist attack from the air.

OK, that was after Bush took office, if you want to nitpick, Chuckles. So, what warnings did Bush have as he took office in 2001?

The outgoing Clinton Administration did its best to warn the incoming Bushies that they should prepare to be focused on terrorism. The Bushies may not have wanted to hear it, but they were warned. They chose not to know.

And even before that, there had been the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in the fall of 2000, and of course the original attack on the World Trade Center towers in 1993. Plus there was a significant instance of domestic terrorism, the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.

These things were in the papers. We all knew about these attacks. And presumably Bush, during the transition, was briefed about attacks that had failed, such as the Millennium Bombing plot of 1999/2000.

Maybe Bush didn't see the approaching threat of terrorism. But that's not because the signs weren't there, or because he wasn't warned.

No, Chuckles, it was because Bush was a fucking idiot.