It was eight years ago today that the CIA presented President George W. Bush with a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US". According to Ron Suskind in his book The One Percent Doctrine, Bush, who was in the early days of one of his typical month-long vacations at his pig-farm-turned-"ranch" in Crawford, Texas, responded by telling his CIA briefer, "All right, you've covered your ass now," and going fishing.
One month and five days later, Osama bin Laden struck in the US. Bush, who was arriving at a Florida elementary school for a photo op, responded by going ahead with the photo op, reading to the children for several minutes, and then hanging around afterwards schmoozing with reporters. The Bush administration would eventually use the attack as an excuse to launch a massive surveillence program aimed at the American people, invade Iraq, and torture thousands of prisoners -- so that they could "protect us from the terrorists".
Just a reminder.
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