The National Security Advisor was both asleep at the switch, but not reading the Congressional testimony of the CIA Director. 12 reports, 7 years, and Rice said the method couldn't have been predicted.

Now, if you have security guard responsible for your house, and that security guard doesn't listen to warnings from the local police AND says that no one could have predicted burglars would use the BACK DOOR, even though police had said watch out for back door burglars, you'd fire the guard. And figure that if the guard was on the job your house wouldn't have been burglarized.

To believe otherwise is to have to suspend all reason in favor of what you WANT to believe.

I know you'll disagree with the analogy. Hasn't been one yet, and you'll be right. Rice isn't a security guard, the country isn't a house, and the CIA aren't police.

And the commission was not about to accuse a sitting President. Now THAT is political. They could just lay out the evidence so that anyone capable of reason in the matter couldn't mistake the obvious conclusion.

"That Condoleezza Rice in the White House press room told reporters May 16, 2002: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, taken another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

That George Tenet, in testimony before Congress, countered Rice's claim: "The documents we've provided show some 12 reports spread over seven years which pertain to possible use of aircraft as terrorist weapons. We disseminated those reports to the appropriate agencies, such as the FAA, the Department of Transportation, and the FBI as they came in."