If Dubya is reading memos, then Osama has already won

In our constant ruminations about what trenchant observation to next bring to our readers, we had expected that there would be a post about a revealing Q&A with former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, which appears in this week's print edition of Sports Illustrated. We don't know whether it reveals more about Ari having his guard down or the weakness of the White House "Press Corps" that the SI reporter was able to get a couple of interesting things out of Fleischer.

At first we were disappointed to see that the online version of the story doesn't reproduce one 9/11 anecdote that appears in the print edition. Showing that there's always a silver lining, Ari explains how Dubya took advantage of the equipment upgrades to Air Force 1 after 9/11 to get DirecTV (satellite TV) with the Major League Baseball premium package so that he would watch baseball from anywhere in the air.

But the linkable version of the story does contain another Dubya-loves-baseball anecdote that reveals what he was up to before 9/11:

Fleischer: I remember going to a [Colorado] Rockies game [Aug 14, 2001] in the middle of the P-3 crisis when China intercepted our aircraft. I remember we were talking in the Oval Office and there was this issue of should Bush go or not. Our military forces are basically being held hostage: Should the President leave? And the President was crystal clear. He said to the the staff: "I'm going to game. We are not going to create a hostage-like environment in this White House."

He sent a signal to the nation that this is a crisis that will not get out of control and I'm going to go to the game. It was interesting because he understood what the impression would be when he would go to the baseball game. I remember at the game Dr. [Condoleezza] Rice would leave to work the classified phone line that was installed up on a suite level. We would get updates at the game about what was happening with China and our forces.

So look what was going on -- 4 weeks before 9/11, Dubya AND Condi head to a ballgame, while already in the midst of standoff with China, and with the national security people extremely, extremely nervous about the prospect of a terrorism attack. Remember the two memos: "Bin Laden determined to strike in US," "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly." Any room for those in the Presidential seats at Coors Field on that day?