Friday, April 09, 2004
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Now I can sleep at night! I was so relieved to hear Condoleezza Rice say in her testimony the other day that if you had known that 19 Saudi terrorists would hijack four airplanes and attack us on September 11, 2001, and if you had known the flight numbers of all four planes and their departure times and the boarding gate numbers and the names of the pilots and the seating assignments of the terrorists and what movies they were showing on each flight, you would have tried to do something about it! What more could anybody ask? That’s what presidents are for!
She also said you’re planning to release the August 6, 2001 PDB. (PDB stands for “Presidential Daily Briefing”--that’s when people come into your office and tell you what’s going on because you’re the president. It happens every day--that’s why it’s called the Daily Briefing.) I was glad to hear you’ll be blacking out the “sensitive” sections for “national security” reasons. Then those Democrats on the 9-11 Commission who are playing partisan politics will see that this was a “primarily historical” document!
Get out the black marking pen! Use bold strokes! When you give it to the commission, it should look like this:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXPresidentXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXwas notXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXwarned XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXcouldn’t have XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXknown XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXbest intelligence XXXXXXXXXnational securityXXXXXXXXXXXXAl Qaeda XXXXXXXXXXXXXfailedXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXClinton Administration XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Also, the title of the PDB is, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” I think you’d better black that out too.
Sincerely,
Carl Estrada