Awfully warbling, Bubby trips the clouded state and barrows wheels curbside for an extended stay. On the grass the little tufts seek absolution for the photos they took with cameras they meant to return but kept inside themselves like rain. Vending portraits with speckles on doilies brought little more than disconcertion; tuition would have to be paid in other ways. And the end unfolded like the beginning began: with sporadic lurches into murky intermissions, a tango with vagueness, a quisling's sense of deja vu.

Yeah, they're brothers.

Seattle Post Intelligencer, Friday, April 2, 2004 á

History Channel to air LBJ rebuttal
By FRAZIER MOORE
AP TELEVISION WRITER
NEW YORK -- In response to an uproar caused by a History Channel documentary that claimed President Lyndon Johnson was involved in the Kennedy assassination, the network will air a challenge to that program by a panel of three historians. The special, airing 8 p.m. EDT Wednesday, is called "The Guilty Men: An Historical Review."

The one-hour program is meant to rebut last November's broadcast of "The Guilty Men," which was based in part on a book published in 2003 by Barr McClellan, who claims the law firm he quit a quarter-century ago was involved in convoluted plots that link Johnson to at least 11 deaths, including President Kennedy's.

The historians re-examining the allegations are author Robert Dallek, considered an authority on the presidency; Stanley Kutler, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin and a leading authority on 20th century American political and constitutional history; and Thomas Sugrue, an author and teacher at the University of Pennsylvania.

Former CNN newsman Frank Sesno serves as moderator of the broadcast, which will air unedited by the History Channel, the network announced Friday.

No preview of the program would be available, the network said.

The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin involved in Kennedy's death in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, but conspiracy theorists continue to advance alternative plots.

While the three historians acknowledge lingering public doubts about the Warren Commission's findings, they dispute as unfounded the theory that President Johnson was involved. Johnson was Kennedy's vice president at the time of the assassination.

The historians along with other scholars were highly critical of "The Guilty Men" last fall, and of the History Channel's decision to air it. Former aides to Johnson, along with former presidents Ford and Carter and President Johnson's widow, Lady Bird Johnson, sought an independent probe of the claims.

The network apologized on Friday to its viewers as well as Mrs. Johnson and her family for the program. It said will no longer be aired or made available on home video.

"We have a great responsibility and this time we did not live up to it," said Dan Davids, History Channel executive vice president. "We hold ourselves accountable. As we have said before, nothing is more important to us than the accuracy of our programming and the integrity of our network."

Conference

To whom will the United States hand over Iraqi sovereignty on June 30?
"We'll find that out soon."
Why haven't U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces been effective in quelling the uprisings?
"We'll need to find out why."
Was the information contained in the infamous Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief accurate?
"I presume the 9/11 commission will find out."
What about those weapons of mass destruction?
"Of course I want to know why we haven't found a weapon yet"
Later, he said of the WMD:
"I look forward to hearing the truth as to exactly where they are."

My letter is here in The Denver Post and below.

Thursday, April 01, 2004

Letters: Sept. 11 commission

Separate interviews

News that the Sept. 11 commission agreed to interview President Bush and Vice President Cheney together defies belief

Their condition allows them to ensure that they can adjust their accounts' consistency on the fly and keep their stories straight. The condition also says the White House does not trust the president to testify without getting himself into trouble. With Cheney there as information chaperone, the administration can make sure Bush does not contradict his staff, mistake key points, or disclose information it wants kept secret.

Everyone knows that witnesses should be interviewed separately. Some fact-finding mission this turned out to be.

DAVID HILDEBRAND

Denver

While reading a piece in the New York Times today on the summer of 2001, it occurred to me that this was just about the time that Bush went on the first of his unusually long vacations.

ITEM #1

Consider first what the Times said today:

March 28, 2004
9/11 Panel Provokes a Discussion the White House Hoped to Avoid
By DAVID JOHNSTON and ADAM NAGOURNEY, New York Times

WASHINGTON, March 27 - In the summer of 2001, according to witnesses interviewed by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 hijackings, President Bush was told repeatedly of terror warnings pouring into American intelligence agencies, mostly about threats overseas.

The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, who briefed Mr. Bush on threats almost daily, "was around town literally pounding on desks saying that something is happening, this is an unprecedented level of threat information," said Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, who was quoted in a Congressional report last year.

But even as the warnings spiked in June and July that year, there appeared to be little sense of alarm at the White House, officials of the Central Intelligence Agency told the commission. It was not until Sept. 4 that Mr. Bush's national security team approved a plan intended to eradicate Al Qaeda and not until Sept. 10 that Mr. Tenet was told to put the plan into effect.

Now let's look back at what Bush was doing about these warnings from Tenet:

ITEM #2

From USA Today, August 3, 2001 White House to move to Texas for a while
By Laurence McQuillan, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Six months after taking office, President Bush will begin a month-long vacation Saturday that is significantly longer than the average American's annual getaway. If Bush returns as scheduled on Labor Day, he'll tie the modern record for presidential absence from the White House, held by Richard Nixon at 30 days.

I think these facts speak for themselves.