Canadian Cynic

You think they would have learned by now

In the midst of a lengthy, surprisingly critical piece in the New York Times, we find this depressing little nugget:

'The White House on Friday put off a decision on declassifying the document at the center of the debate — the Aug. 6 briefing, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." But the administration appeared ready to release at least portions of the document publicly in the coming days.'

"... at least portions ..." In other words, this administration is once again going to carefully and selectively decide what will make them look good and what won't. And it remains to be seen whether anyone -- the press, the 9/11 commission, anyone -- will finally stiffen their spine and say, no, sorry, that's not good enough, we want the whole thing.

Well, OK, we know there's one group that won't put up with this, and that's the 9/11 widows. But anyone else? Anyone? Bueller?

UPDATE: Just so the inevitable dodging, weaving and tap dancing by this administration won't come as any surprise, you should read this piece from the New York Times.

The overly-optimistic title of that article is "U.S. to Declassify Bin Laden Memo" which, to the naive, untrained eye, might suggest that the U.S. is going to, well, you know, declassify the Aug. 6 bin Laden memo. But that's before one actually reads the article, where one reads that "White House officials were working Friday to declassify the document, a so-called presidential daily brief."

They were "working" at it? How hard can this be? "OK, it's declassified, here's your copy."

Moral of this story: Don't be holding your breath for this one.