Good find, Coop. This is yet another attempt by the MSM to try and discredit every word out of the president's mouth.
Terrorists feed on leaks. Through their investigations into whether the 9/11 attacks resulted from intelligence failure, Congress and the special Commission will learn that important intelligence collection capabilities against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida were lost in the several years preceding September 2001. With the concurrence of NSA, the White House officially released just one of these. As press spokesman Ari Fleischer explained: And let me give you a specific example why, in our democracy and in our open system, it is vital that certain information remain secret. In 1998, for example, as a result of an inappropriate leak of NSA information, it was revealed about NSA being able to listen to Osama bin Laden on his satellite phone. As a result of the disclosure, he stopped using it. As a result of the public disclosure, the United States was denied the opportunity to monitor and gain information that could have been very valuable for protecting our country.7
7. White House press statement, 20 June 2002.
Did you happen to see Fox & Friends this morning? They were despicable. They made the whole story into a big joke, calling it an "urban myth." Yet, I couldn't help but note, even on F&F, that they didn't exactly use facts to debunk the story--just the assertion by "some" people that it wasn't true.