What does not really mean in Washington?
The President explains what “not really” means to Larry King:
KING: You first were opposed to the 9/11 Commission and then changed. Why?
G. BUSH: Not really.
KING: You weren’t opposed?
G. BUSH: Well, I just wanted to make sure that it was done the right way. I felt like that — one of my concerns was that it would usurp the Congress’ need to fully investigate.
President Bush wasn’t “really” opposed to the 9-11 Commission. That makes perfect sense:
President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11. (CBS News, May 23, 2002.)
In a move applauded by Democrats, President Bush Friday reversed himself and endorsed the formation of an independent commission to conduct a “focused inquiry” of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States that goes beyond intelligence failures already being probed by Congress. (CNN, December 1, 2002.)
Added: In the comments, Yamantaka from the excellent The Xpat makes the following points:
When the 9/11 Commission first met on February 11th 2003, it’s clock had started ticking on November 27, 2002: the day that bush signed the bill approving the inquiry. So the commission (which had been set to run for 18 months) had already lost 3 months before it’d even met.
In addition, NORAD and the Pentagon were unresponsive to commission queries. Until March 2004, the commission could not even directly question Condoleeza Rice. Those witnesses who appeared were not made to answer under oath, and often had “minders” sent from the White House to monitor them. The panel that Bush authorized was as impotent as a Nevada boxing commissioner.
It’s even more outrageous than you’re letting on…
When the 9/11 Commission first met on February 11th 2003, it’s clock had started ticking on November 27, 2002: the day that bush signed the bll approving the inquiry. So the commission (which had been set to run for 18 months) had already lost 3 months before it’d even met.
In addition, NORAD and the Pentagon were unresponsive to commission queries. Until March 2004, the commission could not even directly question Condoleeza Rice. Those witnesses who appeared were not made to answer under oath, and often had “minders” sent from the White House to monitor them. The panel that Bush authorized was as impotent as a Nevada boxing commissioner.
Depends on your definition of “Not really”.
Oh no, wait, it depends if you’re an idiot.
Anyway Dick and Karl were opposed, Bush never really understood what was going on.
“Is this about the thing that took me away from that goat story?”
Hmmm, the definition of “not really” vs. the definition of “sexual relations”…
How many people died because of Clinton’s dick again?
About 4000 died because of Clinton’s dick. Without Clinton’s dick, Gore would have been president and then maybe they could have stopped the 9/11 attacks (forget the 9/11 Commission whitewash–the Clinton White House was focused on terrorism, not missile defense).
For want of a nail, the horse was lost…
Mind you, I really like Clinton and I loved his administration. If term limits had been eliminated, I expect he could well have won a third term. I wish that were the case.
Ah well, what might have been.
Yeah, and wasn’t his first choice as chairman of the commision Henry “War Criminal” Kissinger?
What do you do when you’re “not really” against a 9-11 Truth Commission? You pick the guy who fought tooth and nail against the 70s Congressional Commissions headed by Frank Church and Otis Pike that investigated the fuck-ups and abuses of the US Intelligence aparatus.
Obviously, that kind of appointment of *that* kind of person to head the commision shows that Bush really wanted to get to the bottom of it.
Pure cynicism= “not really”
Hey, watch the unkind remarks about the Nevada Boxing Commission. They at least had the decency to deny a license to Mike Tyson, which forced him to the degradation of (1) coming to Memphis TN instead and (2) losing, although it is probably not fair to blame that on either state.
So let’s make it “as impotent as the TENNESSEE Boxing Commission,” okay?