Incompetence and Mendacity
This, from the Times review of John Farmer’s The Ground Truth:The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11, should be repeated as many times as necessary: “…both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, Farmer says, provided palpably false versions that touted the military’s readiness to shoot down United 93 before it could hit Washington. Planes were never in place to intercept it. By the time the Northeast Air Defense Sector had been informed of the hijacking, United 93 had already crashed.”
Farmer concludes:
Farmer’s verdict: “History should record that whether through unprecedented administrative incompetence or orchestrated mendacity, the American people were misled about the nation’s response to the 9/11 attacks.”
As one of The Awl commenters writes, do we have to choose? Mendacity and incompetence—that was the essence of the Bush years. Amazing message control; actually running things, not so much.
