Feinstein in Denial

Diane Feinstein must have been having a bad day yesterday. For some reason she was on the new quite a lot, and looking like a fool for most of that. I had a hard time finding a print version of her denial of the West Coast terror plot that Bush spoke of in a speech. I finally found a report at Reuters.uk.

"I've never seen anything that indicated whether the second wave was bonafide or not. There's been rumours bandied about that it was, but I don't know," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said of the hijacked plane plot.

I find it interesting that Feinstein is questioning the legitimacy of the information.

This article also goes into the mayor of LA having a touch of a fit over the release of the information.

While Sen. Feinstein bashed the president on today's revelation claiming she was aware of the plot and it was old news, the mayor of Los Angeles complained that this was the first time he was hearing about the plot. However, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa was not L.A.'s mayor when the threat was first discovered. He faulted the White House with poor communications saying that he's never been contacted by the federal government on matter regarding homeland security.

But a ranking officer with the Los Angeles Police Department told this writer that the Los Angeles authorities were notified about the terrorist plot and that they routinely are provided with homeland security information.

"I have no idea what the mayor is talking about. Those who needed to know about the [terrorist] plot knew about it," said the police commander.

Feinstein said that she believes Bush's disclosure was intended to rationalize his NSA surveillance program.

She told ABC News that she didn't know if this plot was uncovered by the NSA.

"Well, if she doesn't know, why is she talking about it? Does Feinstein always comment on things she doesn't know?" says security and terrorism expert Sid Francis.

I couldn't find anything in Bush's speech that linked the NSA evesdropping with this. I have to agree with Sid Francis that Feinstein should leave her mouth shut on a topic unless she knows something that is actually factual on the topic. Though she appears to have the politicians prediliction for making statements without facts and then demanding they are truth.