Today President Bush said: "The facts are these: George Tenet briefed me on a regular basis about the terrorist threat to the United States of America, and had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on Sept. 11, we would have acted."

I would hope so. But isn't this setting the bar rather low?

I certainly doubt there was any intelligence with remotely that level of specificity.

But that statement does suggest the president's team is bracing for quite a lot of uncomfortable information to come out. Why else make such a statement that really does no more than state that which goes without saying: namely, that had the White House had detailed knowledge about where and when the attack would occur that they would have done something about it?