[From the diaries by susanhu w minor edits.]

This fairly mundane picture of aide to the president Miers poring over papers with George W Bush was circulated yesterday, after Miers’ nomination for the SCOTUS.

Turns out the date on this photo is Aug 6, 2001. In Crawford, Texas. That’s right.

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times [which] observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial ‘presidential daily briefing’ hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.” Editor & Publisher

This has little to do with anything, really. It’s just another chance to bring up Bush’s pre-9/11 failures. Katrina put a glaring spotlight on the real George W Bush: disconnected and on vacation. Bush was asleep at the wheel then just as he was during Katrina. People may be more willing to see the pattern now. It’s been our mantra for weeks, incompetence and corruption.

It is incredible, but conservatives and wingers are using the word “cronyism” even more than we are. They see this as a sign of weakness in Bush. Bush’s base isn’t breaking up, no big earthquakes, but tremors for sure.

Tom DeLay is up to two indictments. Now rumours are swirling about indictments in the CIA/Plame investigation. (Rove? Libby? …Cheney?)I wonder what will happen next? Where will the next chink in the unassailable neo-con armour fall out? Instead of getting my blood pressure up, I’m going to get myself a six-pack and a lawn chair and watch the show.

Update: I almost forgot another added bonus to this historical picture: we can bring up the name Bin Laden. The guy that went from being wanted “dead or alive” to a “cold case file”.