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To: public@nytimes.com
From: "Editor - 201k.com" editor@201k.com
Subject: Bush Will Answer All Questions From 9/11 Panel, Aide Says

Hello Mr. Okrent and Mr. Bovino,

A question about this story:

Bush Will Answer All Questions From 9/11 Panel, Aide Says
By KIRK SEMPLE

Published: March 9, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/09/politics/09CND-BUSH.html

President Bush will answer all the questions of a federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House spokesman said today, suggesting that the president will be more flexible in his approach to the commission.

Commission members said late last month that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had placed strict limits on the private interviews they will grant to the commission, saying that they would meet only with the panel's top two officials and that Mr. Bush would submit to only a single hour of questioning.

The apparent shift in the president's position today followed accusations by Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, that Mr. Bush was hindering the commission's investigation by not agreeing to more than an hour of questioning about intelligence and law enforcement blunders in the months and years before the 2001 attacks.

"He's going to answer all the questions they want to raise," the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters today. When pressed, Mr. McClellan repeated this statement but did not clarify whether the time restriction had been dropped.

"That's what it's scheduled for, an hour, but look, he's going to answer all the questions that they want to raise," Mr. McClellan said.

The spokesman said the president still planned to meet only with the panel's top two officials.

The question is this: If the president is still only meeting for an hour with the top two officials on the committee, what "shift in the president's position" has "apparently" occurred?

In what way will he be "more flexible"? Were there other "strict limits" that have been removed? None are mentioned.

The headline sounds like a big concession, but there's no concession in the text. Were there questions he wasn't going to answer?

Best,

201k.com

# posted by the Editor on Tuesday, March 09, 2004