Sheesh, man, if anybody knew the precise details of the attacks then they could have stopped them. Obviously they didn't, and it's only conspiracy theory nut cases that expected the memo to reveal otherwise.

Nice dodge. Another example of "everybody knows" turning into "only nuts would believe that" when the facts come in.

Sorry, but this particular memo has been sold extensively for many months in many places as the "smoking gun," a specific warning of an attack by hijacked planes on buildings that proved Bush dropped the ball on 9/11. This article is typical of dozens:

But now its bluff is called, as layer after layer of the warnings it received that al-Qaeda would strike at America's heart is unpeeled. Now Bush and his aides are having to explain to the people, the press and even to themselves why and how they either misread or failed to read the clear warning signs that al-Qaeda would strike in exactly the way it did.

At the heart of what is potentially the biggest scandal to blight the presidency since Watergate exactly 30 years ago is that memo passed to Bush on 6 August, warning that Osama bin Laden's organisation was poised to hijack US aircraft to wage a terror campaign.

And according to yesterday's Washington Post, the memo left little doubt that the hijacked airliners were intended for use as missiles and that intended targets were to be inside the US.

Obviously, this statement is utterly false. And now, they've been called on it. And pretending that nobody ever said it isn't going to work.

As for the "historical memo" business, obviously the vast majority of it is, in fact, historical.

You know, I just noticed that a reasonable person might think that 70 ongoing investigations might be interpreted as the administration "doing something" about the threat. As would the CIA and FBI investigations mentioned.

If you were President, what other action would you have taken in August of 2001 given this same information?

Institute the Patriot Act, which has been violently opposed by the Left even AFTER 9/11?

Predicted response to all this from the Left: "Questions remain. Obviously, we need to declassify more memos."