The Political Chase

President of the U.S. or Sgt. Schultz?

It is becoming increasingly clear that Sgt. Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes fame occupies the Oval Office rather than an informed, knowledgeable, and in-command president. As you may recall, Sgt. Schultz became famous for frequently stating, “I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!” George Bush is rapidly adopting the bumbling sergeant’s mantra.

In today’s White House Press Briefing, reporters drilled Dana Perino over when the president was informed about the CIA’s destruction of the interrogation videos in 2005.

Q Thanks. On these CIA videotapes, did either the President or Vice President or Condoleezza Rice, when she was National Security Advisor, or Steve Hadley, see them before they were destroyed?

MS. PERINO: I spoke to the President, and so I will have to defer on the others. But I spoke to the President this morning about this. He has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday. He was briefed by General Hayden yesterday morning. And as to the others, I’ll have to — I’ll refer you to the Vice President’s office and I’ll see if I can get the others.

Interesting. The CIA allegedly informed a select group of Members of Congress about the destruction of the video tapes in November 2006, but doesn’t tell the President about it until yesterday.

And three days ago, the president declared he knew nothing about Iran stopping its nuclear weapons program until one week before the NIE was released. In fact, he wasn’t even sure who actually told him about the NIE findings.

I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information.