Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Bush doesn't know Iraq study group will publicize findings?
I found this report on the Presidents Fox News interview confusing. According to my reading of what the President says, he is under the impression that findings of the Iraq study group, headed by Jim Baker and scheduled to be released on Wednesday, are not to be made public.
Check this out. According to the Hotline report Bush talks about the leaked Rumsfeld memo by saying:
There are 3 possibilities here. 1: The President is just making stuff up and got a bit mixed up in keeping track of the B.S. that he was spouting. This actually makes the most sense as far as I'm concerned. The notion that advice to the President from various groups and people is sacrosanct only applies when the document in question is actually classified. In the case of the Rumsfeld memo, there is no "leak" involved. Rumsfeld declassified that memo and released it on his own hook. In the case of the Iraq study group, the notion that the findings would be classified is ludicrous on its face. This is one of the most highly publicized and anticipated conclusions in the history of this administration. The best comparison would be trying to imagine the administration classfying the findings of the 9/11 commission.
2: The Iraq study group will have 2 conclusions. The one for public consumption, and the secret conclusion provided to the President. Do I really need to explain why this option makes zero sense? Hopefully not... but I'll spell it out in comments if someone insists.
3: The President is in fact correct, and the rest of the world is about to be rudely awakened to the fact that the study group will not be releasing public findings. If this option actually happens I won't be the only loud mouthed political know it all left wondering what the heck is going on.
I suppose yet another option is I'm misreading the meaning of what the President really said. He clearly says these advisory documents are not meant for the public, and then calls the Iraq study group finding "another" of these documents. How I'm misinterpreting that is beyond me.
Check this out. According to the Hotline report Bush talks about the leaked Rumsfeld memo by saying:
"One of the key points is that I'm getting a lot of advice documents and of course these documents were never intended to be read in the public. These are frank assessments by different members of my administration. We're going to be getting another advice document from the Baker/Hamilton Commission soon."The President clearly says that these advisory documents are "never intended to be read in public", and then says that the Iraq study group will be issuing him just such an advisory notice.
There are 3 possibilities here. 1: The President is just making stuff up and got a bit mixed up in keeping track of the B.S. that he was spouting. This actually makes the most sense as far as I'm concerned. The notion that advice to the President from various groups and people is sacrosanct only applies when the document in question is actually classified. In the case of the Rumsfeld memo, there is no "leak" involved. Rumsfeld declassified that memo and released it on his own hook. In the case of the Iraq study group, the notion that the findings would be classified is ludicrous on its face. This is one of the most highly publicized and anticipated conclusions in the history of this administration. The best comparison would be trying to imagine the administration classfying the findings of the 9/11 commission.
2: The Iraq study group will have 2 conclusions. The one for public consumption, and the secret conclusion provided to the President. Do I really need to explain why this option makes zero sense? Hopefully not... but I'll spell it out in comments if someone insists.
3: The President is in fact correct, and the rest of the world is about to be rudely awakened to the fact that the study group will not be releasing public findings. If this option actually happens I won't be the only loud mouthed political know it all left wondering what the heck is going on.
I suppose yet another option is I'm misreading the meaning of what the President really said. He clearly says these advisory documents are not meant for the public, and then calls the Iraq study group finding "another" of these documents. How I'm misinterpreting that is beyond me.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
