Over the last few weeks we have heard lawmakers and officials from two administrations talk about their feelings of responsibility, about how they compulsively re-examine the events leading up to 9/ll, asking themselves whether they could have done anything to avert the terrible disaster that day. It is beginning to seem that the only person free of that kind of self-examination is the man who was chief executive when the attacks occurred. Instead of passively noting that it is the job of the 9/11 commission to figure out whether anything could or should have been done differently, he must demonstrate that he is asking those questions of himself. The "fact sheet" is an extraordinary exercise in bureaucratic excuse making and misdirection. Asked by Tim Russert yesterday what Iraqi leaders the coalition planned to hand over the government to on the target date of June 30, Paul Bremer began his answer with "That's a good question." It would seem that the decision by most news organizations not to publish the "fact sheet" alongside the PDB was a political-editorial decision. Instead, they simply dissected the fact sheet in their own editorial. Hello, kettle? This is pot calling. Not to be outspun, the White House has posted the fact sheet at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040410-5.html but you'll find no link to the PDB itself. Interestingly, "-3" and "-4" in the 4/10 series are apparently reserved for future use, and "-6", although not listed in the index, serves up a lengthy (42 minute) Saturday evening background briefing on the PDB release. Instead they link only to the 7-minute Easter Sunday "Remarks to the Travel Pool." The Silent President | 
