It's Not Lying, It's a Gift For Fiction

“I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
-- President Bush, 9/1/05, four days after being warned, on tape, that the levees were a “very, very grave concern.”

“I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”
-- Then-National Security Adviser Condi Rice, 5/16/02, despite government reports in 1999 and 2001 predicting just that.

“I don’t know of any reporting that anyone saw that anticipated an insurgency of this level, and I just have never seen anything like that.”
-- Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, 12/21/04, two months after the national reports that pre-war intelligence did just that.

hu·bris ~ 'hyü-bris. n. Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance

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My last post before I spend three days hiking, incommunicado. Enjoy my colleagues' commentary, and have a pleasant weekend.