Their press conf. for June 10 was drowned out, though, by the "dirty bomb" announcement, so I have no idea what the meeting portended. A suspicious person might think announcing a month old arrest was very timely for drowning out a serious inquiry. Thank G-d I'm not suspicious, but I have started looking around for my tin foil hat ;')
Everyone is looking in the wrong direction. It's not Presidents, it's not the CIA, the NSA, or the FBI. None of those agencies decide foreign policy. They must act on orders of the State Department in matters of foreign policy.
It is true that the President sets the grand sweep of foreign policy, but the mid-level to small details over the entire globe, regarding trivialities, protocols and such, are handled by the large and somewhat ossified State Department. No one person could do that.
Ever since oil was pumped from Saudi Arabia, we have known that Saudi Princes are arrogant and dictatorial and have only gotten worse. They are easily offended.
Given that our entire economy, the greatest in the world, and the techonology that makes us the mightiest in the world, depends largely on oil, the State Department has had long standing orders not to offend Saudis over trivial matters. CIA spies are just lackeys for embassies and they don't want to lose their job.
The problem is, the State Department, which can indeed boss all our spy agencies on matters of foreign affairs, decides what is trivial or not. Saudis have been allowed to visit here and do things that would get you or I arrested for many, many years. Compared to the flow of oil, State Department Diktat was that most other things were trivial. Terrorism was trivial.
That idea should have been changed after a lot of marines and sailors were killed, but the State Department operates on the bankrupt philosophy of RealPolitik. Moral considerations like avenging our troops don't count with them. And of course, as one of our oldest and most idiot-riddled bureacracies (considering most of their decisions), they were unlikely to change long standing tradition even if it was a good idea.
So yes, our intel agencies were hampered and told to go soft and not make trouble where Saudis were involved. That is why we are seeing all these wierd anomalies, and why we should get to the bottom of them. But it has nothing to do with Presidents. It never even got that far. Given the thousands of government departments that would have to be mastered by a new administration, along with enacting their agenda, it is doubtful every nook and cranny or every odd rule was scrutinized. This is all low level chaff that has been in the system since World War II. So although some think it would be grand to blame Bush, and some think it would be great to blame Clinton, and nearly everyone hates the FBI, CIA, and NSA, I think we need to look to our thoroughly rotten State Department and its decades old standing orders to not offend Saudis for the real fly in the ointment. It's so obvious it's staring everyone in the face, but nobody sees it.
That's my opinion, anyway.
Now go yell at Bog Fertile ;')