8 years ago: August 6, 2001

August 6, 2005, on this blog: August 6, 2001

Four years ago today President Bush received a daily brief warning him that terrorists planned to attack America. He spent the next three weeks on vacation.

If he had done something, anything, might the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 have been prevented? I don’t know. Nobody knows. But here is what we do know: He did not do anything. And nearly 3,000 people died.

The blame for the attacks lies, of course, with the terrorists who carried them out and not with those in charge of our security who failed to stop them.

But George W. Bush did not merely fail to stop them. He failed to try to stop them. That still doesn’t mean he deserves blame for the attacks, but he has earned the enduring shame of a sleeping watchman. He was duly warned, and he did not even try.