Tom Spencer of Thinking it Through is saying the unspeakable:
that Bush and co may have known in 2001, not just that there was a risk of terrorist action, but knew more about the September 11 attacks beforehand than they now admit to.
That possibility, of course, is that the administration knew something quite a bit more specific than just noticing increased “chatter” on the terrorist networks in the days up to 9/11.
Now I’m not suggesting they knew anything more specific than that terrorist attacks were a possibility against major targets. Admittedly, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to back this up. When Ashcroft stopped flying commercial, that’s an awfully suggestive little detail. When we hear that the president was briefed about hijackings, that’s another suggestive little detail. When we think about how quickly the 19 hijackers were ascertained and find out 14 investigations were open of people linked to the hijackers, that’s another detail.
Just this rather mild suggestion would be an absolute bombshell — such an enormous bombshell that this administration, which already practices a Nixonian level of secrecy, might try to do anything to stymie an investigation. Such a bombshell that it might doom W’s administration’s second term immediately and hand the White House and potentially both chambers (Republican-controlled chambers that would have therefore assisted in the cover-up) to the other political party next year in a landslide.
Tom himself does not think that Bush let them happen, for some sort of political gain and neither do I yet, but the possibility has crossed my mind. It wouldn’t have surprised me greatly if they had let it happen. I believe it was Avedon Carol, of The Sideshow, who spoke about living through the Nixon years and finding out later that reality matched her greatest paranoiac
fantasies at the time, or even surpassed them. It could very well happen again…